Moms in the academy

Via Mother in Law, a really good post about how student parents schedule their courses. It's framed as advice to other student parents, but it's very educational for instructors. What particularly stands out for me is the advice against taking classes with take-home exams and classes that use the socratic method.

It's also interesting to me to think about the case for scheduling afternoon courses for the benfit of student parents rather than instructors with kids. I recently got into a talk with someone about the whole accomodations-for-parents-are-unfair-to-those-who-don't-have-kids thing. She was trying very hard not to sound like she was begruding her colleagues, but it made me think that this is an issue that is just going to need to get some air time before we can all figure out how to deal with it. My position, of course, is that it's an institutional problem if things are so bad that giving person X afternoon classes makes person Y's schedule suck. For what it's worth, by the way, I do teach evening classes, so I'm not talking about me; at the same time, I must point out that my ability to teach evening classes is predicated on the fact that my husband does not work.

It seems to me that one way to get out of this childless women vs. women-with-kids pattern would be to think about the students, many of whom are also women, and many of whom also have kids. Work situations that are difficult for faculty with children are also, therefore, difficult for students with children. Faculty retention, productivity, and morale are strong arguments, as is the simple issue of equity and justice. But if I'm not mistaken, we often allow the inferred understanding that accomodations somehow compromise the institution, rather than strengthening it. Bringing into the argument the question of how institutional cultures that discriminate against women on the faculty also affect women in the classroom* is something we should probably do a lot more of.



*My own personal issue is the lack of changing rooms in campus bathrooms (let alone the lack of on-campus daycare provisions, especially on a drop-in basis). Having taken Pseudonymous Kid to meetings occasionally when he was a babe in arms--when I would nurse him throughout the meeting, which yes, did keep him quiet, so there--not being able to change him anywhere except in the middle of the goddamn hall or on someone's desk was a real problem, precisely the kind of thing that makes people mutter about how babies don't belong at work. Inasmuch as universities are public facilities--public universities are, anyway--it is really rather shocking to realize that they don't provide the changing tables we've all gotten used to seeing in every movie theater or mall bathroom.