Inside each of us, British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips noted, are many lives competing to be lived. In this essay, the author describes how her educational and professional goals influenced her decision to delay having children. Now, at age 40, and having achieved tenure, she wonders if she may have waited too long for the "competing life" that…

It is time for midcareer feminists in the humanities to consider the legacy of their foremothers, as many of their mentors assume emerita status. While feminism has become a multiplicity of often divided feminisms, one constant is a desire to leave the world better than one found it. Service to one's institution, however, can be a professional…

How does a successful associate professor with a distinguished publication record, a visible leadership role among women scientists on campus, and prestigious grant funding for interdisciplinary initiatives in graduate and undergraduate training as well as research feel about seeking promotion to full professor? In the course of the authors'…

The author serves as the chair of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) Assembly of State Conferences, the umbrella organization for individual state AAUP conferences; a moderator for Pandora's Project, a website for survivors of sexual abuse and assault; a volunteer for Veronica's Voice, a support program for women and girls…

Although Latino enrollment in higher education has increased as the US Latino population has grown (Latinos now outnumber African Americans), more often than not Latinos begin their college education in community colleges or less selective four-year institutions--institutional types with lower persistence and completion rates in general. Moreover,…

In this article, the author offers some success secrets of the stars for fitting into one's research again after the baby. The author has some experience to share, having had her first child as a high school teacher, her second as an ABD (all-but-dissertation) graduate student, and now her third as an assistant professor at a research-intensive…

The authors present sobering findings of a study about women and leadership in higher education. The findings of the authors' study are based on the experiences of a small group of women faculty at Johns Hopkins University. The study found that, despite good intentions and occasional interventions by leaders in higher education, women are still …

Efforts to diversify university faculties began almost forty years ago. Since then, the number of white women faculty and faculty of color on U.S. campuses has grown slowly but steadily. At the same time, the explanatory framework for this shift--what they call the "terms of inclusion"--has changed profoundly. "Diversity" and "excellence" were…

This article talks about the issues on gender and contingent labor in the field of composition. The authors contend that the composition programs are feminized, devalued, and heavily populated by contingent faculty. The feminization of the field of composition in particular makes the work--and the potential solidarity between those on and off the…

It is clear from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Faculty Gender Equities Indicator 2006 report and other studies that female faculty members have not achieved equity with their male colleagues. One indicator of this is that women, even when they hold the same rank as men, are paid less. Institutions frequently argue that…

This article presents an interview with Emily Toth, who writes the monthly "Ms. Mentor" academic advice column in the "Chronicle of Higher Education" and teaches in the English department at Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge. She is the author of "Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia" (1997), "Inside Peyton Place: The Life…

While women have made progress in many areas of higher education, institutions still need to focus attention on the advancement and retention of women at the highest academic ranks. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education's 2005 Fall Staff Survey, women represent only 40.6 percent of full-time faculty and 25.1 percent of full…

This essay argues that it is time to rewrite the rhetoric of motherhood in higher education, and use American Association of University Professors (AAUP ) recommendations to help. The authors observe that although the AAUP and other groups have urged colleges and universities to strike a work-life balance, academic culture is slow to change, and…

Even though women make up nearly half of the PhD population, they are not advancing at the same rate as men to the upper ranks of the professoriate; many are dropping out of the race. Our first "Do Babies Matter?" article, published in the November-December 2002 issue of Academe, examined the effect of family formation on academic careers. It was…

Biological and tenure clocks have the unfortunate tendency to tick loudly, clearly, and at the same time. The average age at which faculty earn the PhD is thirty-four, putting the tenure decision at about age forty, just when a woman's fertility is in serious decline. As more women enter the academic profession as assistant professors, more of…