The Academic Mother at Mid-Career: Integrating Motherhood, Academia, and Life to Obtain Satisfaction and Well-Being

• In Event: 47.044 - Faculty at Mid-Career: A Time of Reinvention and Intentional Growth

Abstract

There are perennial and persistent gender gaps in higher education with regard to males and females in tenure track positions, scholarly productivity, salary, job satisfaction, and mid-career promotion to full professorships (Baker, 2016; Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006; Mason & Goulden, 2002a). Analysis of the data reveals that the gaps are not so much derived associated with being a woman, but being a woman with children (Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006, Mason, & Goulden, 2004b). This issue, colloquially referenced as the mommy track, leaky pipeline, or pyramid problem has received much attention in recent decades and institutions have begun to develop policies and practices to ameliorate the disparity. However, the fact remains – women, especially those in mid-career, who identify as mothers and academics experience a unique set of externally and internally experienced challenges to navigate. Wolf-Wendel and Ward (2006) argued “there is an increasing need to understand the personal and institutional barriers, challenges and triumphs that women faculty who opt to have children face as they attempt to balance the often conflicting demands of academic and family life” (p. 487). Moreover, Clark (2006) suggests that there is a way to balance and integrate life, children, and academia in a way that is personally satisfying and results in positive wellbeing. Thus, this part of the presentation focuses on the personal and institutional “barriers, challenges and triumphs” of mid-career Academic Mother and strategies to integrate life, children, and academia. The work-family integration literature is used as a tool to illuminate the interaction between the context of higher education and the roles and responsibilities of a mother within the context of the family.

Authors

• Amanda Rockinson-Szapkiw, University of Memphis

• Jillian L Wendt, University of the District of Columbia