Academe isn't a Leaky Pipeline: It's a Game of Chutes and Ladders - and We Can Even the Odds

August 23, 2021
See the full article: https://www.chronicle.com/article/academe-isnt-a-leaky-pipeline?utm_source=Iter…
  • Colleges and departments should offer transparent and equitable family-leave policies for students, faculty, and staff members. Where policies like tenure-clock extensions, flexible teaching modalities, and parental leave do not exist, universities and departments must establish them. Leave policies should include non-birth parents. Departments should ensure that parents use leave to parent; this starts with clear expectations and norms about the purpose of leave. We must resist the tendency to view parental leave as “extra time” in which a scholar can dig into research or go on the job market. In the long run, such policies normalize all family structures and reduce the motherhood penalty.
  • Colleges and departments should clearly communicate family-leave policies. One should not need to have a “family friendly” department chair in order to get fair accommodations. Universities must ensure that policies are easy to locate and understand, and that they’re equitably enforced. Individual students, faculty, and staff members should learn all they can about relevant policies on family leave, stopping dissertation or tenure clocks, and tenure and promotion. By understanding existing policies, individuals can ensure that they are being treated fairly and, if not, can pursue a remedy.
  • Colleges and departments should establish equitable and parent-friendly hiring practices. When conducting campus interviews for new faculty members, hiring committees should ensure that candidates have “no questions asked” blocks of private time and space conducive to expressing breast milk, attending to medical conditions, or talking with human-resources officials about job opportunities for a partner. All job candidates should be provided with information related to child care on campus (which we strongly encourage colleges and universities to establish) and related issues, like family leave.
  • Scholars should prioritize mentoring early-career colleagues, students, and even peers. Throughout the pandemic, informal mentorship via social-media posts or practice Zoom job talks has become a lifeline for early-career scholars. These efforts made informal mentorship more accessible, erasing the barriers of travel costs and geographic distance. These efforts can and should continue. Formal mentorship, such as conference roundtables and workshops, also offers a space for early-career scholars to learn about the profession. It is especially important that men pick up the slack on this front: Women should not be the only ones doing the valuable work of keeping other women in the profession.