Children in the Workplace Policies: Exploring Institutional Culture and Its Impact on Academic Mothers

• In Event: Motherscholars Juggling Their Work in the Academy

Abstract

A growing body of research explores the relationship between IHE policies that promote or inhibit work-life balance and the professional and personal lives of tenure-track faculty parents. This study explores how such institutional policies that limit or restrict the presence of employees’ children in the workplace impact academic mothers’ job satisfaction and productivity. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 18 academic mothers who shared experiences with and knowledge of policies addressing their children’s presence on campus and how institutional culture impacted them personally and professionally. Preliminary findings indicate that the workplace climate created by administrators and colleagues matters more to academic mothers than explicit institutional policies and that there are important differences in how institutions and academic mothers define family-friendliness.

Authors

• Chrissy J Cross, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Heather K. Olson Beal, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Lauren E. Burrow, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Lauren E. Brewer, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Shelby Laird, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences