Balancing Academic Research And Motherhood Is A Precarious Task

Precarious Task Author: Ricki Lewis In the days of TV's June Cleaver -- stay-at-home-mom extraordinaire -- the idea of the female parent spending hours each day lecturing undergraduates or directing laboratory research bordered on absurd. Women were rare among the ranks of academic scientists, and those who were also mothers rarer still. Today women are prominent players in the academic life sciences, and many are mothers, too. Like their counterparts in industry (R. Lewis, The Scientist, Jan. 9, 1995, page 21), they are finding their university employers more "mom-friendly" than in years past. Things are getting easier because of changes in law, policy, and campus culture. Under prompting from the Clinton administration, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993, which mandates some allowance in the workplace for the demands of new parenthood. And women scientists in academia report that the act -- combined with sick leave, vacation time, and just plain helpfulness on the part of colleagues -- can add up to a comfortable cushion of time surrounding childbirth. Next on the reform agenda, many say, will be a growing, but still limited, practice of extending the time until a tenure decision, so that child-care duties do not derail mothers from the tenure track. "We don't yet know the percentage or number of schools with extended tenure-clock policies," remarks Gail Gregory, grant coordinator at the Washington, D.C.-based Association for Women in Science (AWIS). The organization has just begun a program to query its membership that will generate a list of schools with such policies, she adds. Meanwhile, women are developing their own approaches to combining the roles of scientist and mother. Despite such practical problems as scheduling child care and lack of sleep, many scientist-moms are finding that their lives are enriched by their dual roles. "There is a synergy between the professional fulfillment one derives from science, and the kind of emotional satisfaction derived from parenting," maintains Marlene Belfort, director of the division of genetic disorders at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y. Belfort credits early working-woman role models and attending an all- female secondary school with helping her successfully combine a scientific career with parenting. Women working in academia or government laboratories point out that they enjoy somewhat more scheduling flexibility than their industrial counterparts. Pressures for results and publications, however, can sometimes be greater, and the total number of work hours can add up to more than in a corporate setting, they say. Women in university labs see an increasing sensitivity to family demands, but the inherent difficulties in combining the two roles remains a primary concern. This is evident in the topics of an online discussion group sponsored by San Diego-based Graduate Women in Science (GWIS), 70 percent of whose 1,500 international members are in life sciences. Members include women with graduate degrees in the sciences, although not all are practicing scientists. "We discuss issues of interest to women scientists, including dual-career couples, how to have it all, starting a family, advice to graduate students, and much more," says Sheri Cole, former director of GWIS and an assistant project scientist in the department of medicine at the University of California at San Diego. (To sign on to the discussion group, E-mail Cole at sheri_cole@sombsb.ucsd.edu) Trade-offs and compromises are part of making a life of research and motherhood work, according to many who do it. "I grew up in the '70s, when we thought we could do it all, and now I realize it's not true," observes Catherine Troisi, an assistant professor of molecular virology at Baylor College of Medicine and mother of three. Recalling a recent invitation to talk to young women in high school about combining a career in science with motherhood, she jokes that she declined "because I'm waiting for someone to tell me how to do it!" Having a baby brings both immediate and long-term challenges to a woman's scientific career. Immediate concerns include pregnancy-related health problems, the scary first days of new parenthood, and then finding child care. "I was able to use sick leave and vacation time during my problem pregnancies and after the births so that my pay was not interrupted, and colleagues helped with advising my graduate students while I was in the hospital with premature labor," says Janet Mertz, a professor of oncology at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and the mother of two sons. As new parents settle into a routine of constantly conflicting commitments, the road to tenure is suddenly littered with other obligations. Recognizing that extending the tenure clock by a year or two would ease parenting pressures, some institutions now increase the time that a junior faculty member has to earn tenure. Such a "stop-the-tenure-clock" policy at the University of Minnesota was a lifesaver for Amy Skubitz, an assistant professor in the department of laboratory medicine and pathology who found that, "instead of having tenure, I'd be having twins!" Her department delayed a tenure decision one year. Wellesley College, Stanford University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Iowa have similar programs. And the National Institutes of Health instituted a stop-the-tenure-clock policy in 1993. "At first the policy was informal, but now it is part of our tenure-track policy," reports Steven Benowitz, director of human resources at NIH. "It extends to all family-care responsibilities." Soon, postdocs in search of their first faculty appointment will be able to easily find out which institutions offer delayed tenure. AWIS has just launched the Women Scientists in Academe program, focusing on retention of women scientists. A key issue of the program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, will be extended tenure timetables. "We will visit chemistry, biology, and math departments at four institutions, a large public and a private research institution, a liberal arts college, and an historically black college," explains Gregory. "At these site visits, we will ask if there are any systemic ways to prevent women from falling off of the tenure track." Teams of visiting scientists will identify and evaluate roadblocks to the retention, promotion, and tenure of women faculty, then design materials and workshops to address the problems. Successful scientist-mothers share great organizational skills, key to efficiency. "The discipline of needing to accomplish my work goals in a set time frame has been very good for me," relates Jane Dyson, an associate member in biophysics at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and mother of two. Maura Kibbey, now a research scientist at biotech company IGEN Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., was a staff fellow at the National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR) two years ago, when daughter Siobhan was born. "When I went back and cut my hours, I accomplished the same amount of work, because I was more organized," she recounts. Tips from Kibbey include limiting socializing, finding reliable daycare with backups, and having contingency plans for ill children. Hynda Kleinman, who was Kibbey's supervisor at NIDR, is chief of the cell biology section. She sees her own life as a scientist, mother, and single parent for several tough years as a perpetual shifting of schedules to fit her career around the lives of her two daughters, now 16 and 20. 24-HOUR DAY Hynda Kleinman fit her laboratory schedule to the lives of Dana, left and Ruth when they were younger. "When they would sleep, I'd go into the lab," she recalls. "If they went to sleep at 8:00 p.m., I'd work at night. When they got older, they'd sleep late in the mornings, so I'd work then." A tenure-track research career usually requires more hours than a comparable industrial position, researchers report, and parenting duties can cut into that time. "Motherhood means I no longer have the time to work 60 to 70 hours per week," says Mertz. "With young children, it is hard to manage even a 40-hour work week." Fortunately, flexibility tends to be greater in academia, women scientists say, where dashing out to catch a school play is usually informally handled by asking a postdoc or graduate student to supervise the lab for an hour or two. SHARED DUTY: Jackie Butler and her husband takes turns handling doctor's visits with Cade, left, and Rosanna. "If we are not in class during a time such as the Halloween party, then we are free to leave campus and attend," notes Jackie Butler, an instructor and former chairwoman of the department of science and mathematics at Grayson Community College in Denison, Texas. A sick child is every parent's nightmare, but the problem can be especially difficult to work around in a life sciences lab, where many experiments are precisely timed. Back-up plans are crucial. Butler and her husband, a veterinarian, take turns handling doctor's visits. Kibbey and her engineer husband each take half-days when a child is sick, so neither falls too far behind at work. NEW EFFICIENCY: Maura Kibbey developed better organizational skills after Siohban's birth, getting more work accomplished in less time. Adopting a part-time work schedule works for some. Cathy Troisi had been a postdoc at Baylor before Gregory's birth in 1982. When told that there weren't part-time positions at Baylor, she found such a position at another institution. Demonstrating her value at another school helped negotiations at Baylor. "My adviser and the department chair at Baylor decided that rather than lose me, they would arrange something part-time," Troisi says. "I was appointed to the faculty in a nontenure-track position." For women who run their labs, however, the hours the job demands are so many that the flexibility of academia all but vanishes. "I no longer have time to work in the lab with my own hands, attend many fewer seminars, say "no" much more often to nonessential tasks, such as writing review articles, and it is also much more difficult to travel for meetings," relates Mertz. "My promotion to full professor was probably delayed two to three years because I wasn't writing review articles and speaking at international meetings during early motherhood." Ricki Lewis is a textbook author and geneticist based in Scotia, N.Y. She has three young daughters. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #18, pg.16 , September 18, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.)

Balancing Academic Research And Motherhood Is A Precarious Task

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