Teaching to academia?

[jimmyjammyjumbo]

I’m currently on a career break from teaching while raising my young dc. I was feeling pretty fed up with teaching to be honest and as I went straight into it from my BSc I don’t have any other work experience. I feel like I don’t want to miss out on having a career that makes me feel really fulfilled.
Has anyone come out of teaching and found a passion for their subject/research again or is it mad? Or has anyone gone from academia into teaching and care to tell me why the grass is not always greener?
Maybe being a sahm for a while has just made me desperate to get my brain going again.
I really enjoy teaching A level Biology and feel like I would really enjoy researching the subject more and lecturing/teaching to a higher level.
TIA

I moved into teaching from academia because I could not find a full time post (very niche subject). After 8 years! Husband works in academia. It's incredibly hard to get a job. You have to be extremely good at your subject (internationally competitive on regular basis), and career changers are at an immediate disadvantage. It's nothing like teaching. Just as stressful and difficult but uses a very different side of your brain: teaching is high pressure, varied, but shallow subject coverage, mostly requiring excellent organisation skills, academic research is deep, lonely and requires total obsession with your subject and the capacity for unique and creative contribution to knowledge on a regular basis. It's just nothing like teaching.

Sorry, random exclamation mark. Typing on phone.

I am an academic, university based, in life sciences. I can say your statement is nonsense as it is so definitive, and the experience of me and of all my colleagues proves it is not true across the board... perhaps in your department, but not in the three I have worked in post PhD.

Your statement that it is incompatible with children is phrased as a definitive fact, which is demonstrably untrue.

bigkidsdidit, which bit of in my experience was unclear? You say that you can talk about the experience of yourself and your colleagues. Can you be sure? I was held up by my department as the poster girl of being able to "have it all" (career plus children) precisely because I did not shout around about the hours I was working, but seemingly managed to complete two maternity leaves without a gap in my publication record or grant application record (and some very prestigious publications). How do you know what hours your colleagues are keeping to keep up appearances?

After my second maternity leave, I returned to work with a newly funded significant grant (as PI), several conference contributions (during my maternity leave) and 4 peer-reviewed publications in press. The culture of the department was that this was expected. When I spoke to other senior women in the department, they had done similar and it was not unusual to bring pre-school children into the offices whilst you finished off in the lab.

Yes, your experience may be different, but that was mine. What is your problem with me vocalising my experience?

oh and I worked in 3 departments post-PhD too, though in different sectors, which enabled me to make comparisons.

*upheld

I wasn't denying your experiences. I was disagreeing strongly with your flat statement that a career in academic sciences is incompatible with a family.

And I'm leaving this now as it is veering quite far away from the OPs question.

Probably not helping the situation, but I believe both experiences to be true.

I have a friend who is a professor who has small children. There are no other female professors with small children in her discipline, full stop, and female professors are like hens teeth. She works incredibly long hours, flies around the world a lot and wrote a book on maternity leave. That's why she's a professor in her late thirties and incredibly successful, running a large group of other researchers and working late into the night most nights.

I am not a professor in my late thirties, I'm more junior and older! I do work hard, but I don't travel a lot as I don't like it and tend to choose more local projects to stay at home more as the main carer for the children. I work occasionally on weekends, but nothing like the hours my friend puts in. I work steadily and productively, probably similar to a lot of teachers, but without sacrificing everything to it. Hence I am not a professor yet (if I ever will be) and I have a smaller number of projects on the go, don't get invited for keynotes yet.

There clearly is an issue for many females in academia, as only 1 in 5 are professors, but it's more like 50/50% at the PhD stage, so something happens to make them not rise up the ranks and decide that professorial lifestyle (which is hard work but comes with bigger pay) is not for them. I believe more women (and men from other countries) are stuck in contract jobs/insecure employment/face more difficulties getting promoted.

I don't think it's impossible for women to have children and be an academic, the successful ones I know have both, but they are the exception that proves the rule to some extent, if you look at the statistics. I have friends who were given warnings for their productivity after a mat leave. In the new era of productivity measuring, being 'on it' all the time is going to be even harder if you want to combine academia with having a life/having children/not being obsessed by it.

This is a bit off topic, but it hasn't worked out very well for the friend I know who jumped from teaching as she has got stuck in insecure contract jobs after her PhD and doesn't want to move the whole family elsewhere to find permanent work, so I'm pretty sure she isn't going to carry on in it as it doesn't suit her whole family's circumstances, which is common amongst the women I know.

I find this really depressing and I say this as a female prof. There are so few of us and little real drive to appoint more women. Lots of platitudes but little action. I don’t think it’s generally a case of women deciding against a professorial lifestyle. It’s often a decision made for them in so many ways, subtle and otherwise. And yes, in my experience the women who do become profs seem to have to work harder and longer than their male counterparts. Even well intentioned men often don’t realise how much they’re helped through networking, unofficial mentoring, introductions etc... They also rarely take on the work of encouraging gender equality but that too is real and time consuming work and has cost many women publications, conference papers, research trips and therefore promotions.

20nil I completely agree, it is structured in subtle ways which are hard to see from the outside, as it all looks equal and transparent and yet inside it, it just doesn't happen.

It is also the socialization of women with families to 'put the family first', To them, as it does for me, it means not moving my family about once they are in good schools, being physically there to care for them even as teens and so on. So, models of promotion that are predicated on international travel and international job seeking are rarely taken up by women and wouldn't be supported by a lot of their partners either who want to prioritize their own work- I watched (probably unwisely) a vlog by Tara Brabazon on how to make professor, and she advocated international job hunting. I know probably 5 women off the top of my head who have put up with lower pay, being taken advantage of by their dep't, not getting promoted, getting worse pay than a man on the same project, because they want to keep their family life and husband's work stable.

This isn't really the thread for this discussion, though probably! I think the take-home point for the OP is that a move into training/education lecturing might be a good move. This is certainly compatible with family life. Starting from scratch, doing a PhD, getting a permanent job (this being the hardest jump IMO), going from lecturer to higher up, even professor is a life's work and most women who enter into academia don't do it (perhaps some don't want to either).

it seems to me it's quite important to acknowledge that there are bad institutions or bad departments, rather than pretending that you'll always be looked after and treated with respect.

Nobody's pretending you'll be looked after. My point was that presenting extreme experiences as the definitive truth of what academia is like are not helpful. There's too much variability by field and department.

Sweeping statements about how science academia is incompatible with young children are simply not true. If you're in a bad department where the culture is hostile, however, then it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees.

It's important to distinguish between what's typically true of STEM academia in the UK, and what might be true if you end up in a bad department/institution. I certainly wasn't able to do this myself as a lecturer, but as I've become more senior and seen how many departments operate, I've learned how. (If I knew years ago what I know now, I'd have left one previous institution a lot earlier.)

Oh, I think people do claim that. Certainly, when I started, the same people who didn't believe 'we' hired teaching associates, also believed that 'we' had a lovely, supportive culture where junior faculty were mentored to an exceptional level. Because that was their experience.

I hope I don't sound bitter. I don't feel bitter. But I do feel aware of how very differently people can experience facets of the same departmental or institutional culture.

After my second maternity leave, I returned to work with a newly funded significant grant (as PI), several conference contributions (during my maternity leave) and 4 peer-reviewed publications in press. The culture of the department was that this was expected. When I spoke to other senior women in the department, they had done similar and it was not unusual to bring pre-school children into the offices whilst you finished off in the lab.

I can understand why you did this. I was told to publish while on maternity leave, but those women who do this make it bloody awful for those women who simply can’t. You were lucky to be in a situation where you were able to work. But there are a multitude of reasons why someone can’t—-having a sick baby, being poorly yourself, having a baby who never sleeps.

Of course it’s down to each individual to decide what they want to do, but working like mad during mat leave sets an expectation that all women can do this & supports the belief of some (generally male) colleagues that those who don’t publish during their leave are no longer committed to their career.

iveburntthetoast, please don't make assumptions. Ds2 had some awful health issues which I won't go into details of here. The expectation of working at this pace whilst dealing with regular hospital appointments were a large contributor to resigning. It's easy when you are outside of the situation to say, "week just don't do the work. They can't MAKE you do it". It's another thing entirely when you are in that situation and getting pressure to do it from on high.

*well

Stupid blooming autocorrect.

If you are put under pressure to work when on maternity leave, you need to consult your union or a lawyer. This is true for all fields, not just academia.

I think this thread perpetuates a lot of unhelpful stereotypes: female professors work long hours and sacrifice their personal lives to get there; those who want to a work life balance just don't get to be professors. There are certainly more hurdles for women to jump to become professors, but there are plenty of examples of leading female professors who don't work insane hours or get bullied into trying to meet impossible expectations.

It's important to distinguish between what's typically true of STEM academia in the UK, and what might be true if you end up in a bad department/institution. I certainly wasn't able to do this myself as a lecturer, but as I've become more senior and seen how many departments operate, I've learned how.

This in bucketloads. It is not OK to be bullied, in any profession. If you are being bullied into working long hours to meet unreasonable expectations, you should not just assume this is endemic to academia but you should take action.

Sorry, I shouldn’t have made that sweeping statement. I wasn’t saying that publishing with a baby is easy, but it still happens—and often (from speaking to other women ), it’s because they feel they have no choice.

I also had huge pressure from above to work during mat leave—to the point i was told I wouldn’t be promoted if I failed to publish, but I spent the first 4 month of DD’s life in a mother and baby unit, and the whole of my leave was spent under the care of the psychiatric crisis team. I could barely keep myself alive, never mind write an article.

My point was that there are situations where, no matter how much pressure there is, it can be utterly impossible to keep working during a maternity leave.

When I returned to work, I was made to explain why I had not published. My Dean directly compared me to 2 other colleagues who had done research while on leave. On the basis of that comparison, he told me I was no longer committed to research and he tried very hard to force me on to a teaching-only contract. This was in front of a HR person.

There was no way i could compete with my colleagues’ productivity on leave & that was used as a stick to beat me over the head with.

My Dean directly compared me to 2 other colleagues who had done research while on leave. On the basis of that comparison, he told me I was no longer committed to research and he tried very hard to force me on to a teaching-only contract. This was in front of a HR person.

Why did you not make a formal complaint, via the union?

In many years of working in a number of world leading institutions, I have (almost) never seen or heard of senior management doing something like this - which is manifestly illegal. The case I did hear about was challenged and the senior professor involved was forced to resign from his management role.

Sorry to hear it, iveburntthetoast.

I also went to HR about my boss (to be told, "well some of these academics can be eccentric"). I also went to occupational health who did insist that some changes were made, but these were honoured by the department for about 6 months before reverting back to the previous situation. Obviously this is not the type of experience of everyone here, but it was my experience and I suspect others who have also experienced similar have also left.

There are certainly more hurdles for women to jump to become professors, but there are plenty of examples of leading female professors who don't work insane hours or get bullied into trying to meet impossible expectations

I have to be honest, the ones I know work very long hours. Not every night til 3am, but weekends, evenings, especially if they have younger children. One good thing is as your children get older, though, if you have started out as a lecturer when they are younger, then as they get more independent, you can push forward at this point. I know quite a few Reader level with older children now, quite a few Profs, but I don't know any who slack a bit like some of the nearing retirement male professors I know. They have made an art of resting on their laurels and most got to be professor when there was less required of them, they wouldn't get it now with the new regime of performance management for sure. The idea that we will be truly equal when bad women get through as easily as bad men is some way off. The women I know who are profs are exceptional mostly.

Going to HR is a pointless exercise, mostly, as it going to the union. On paper, everything is equal. The hidden stereotyping, preferentialising of people 'like them', setting targets difficult to meet with young children, is all soft stuff. People rarely bully in an overt way, it's more set up so you are more likely to be temporary/don't quite make the grade/don't receive any preferential treatment (as my male colleagues have done in decisions made about promotion but very hard to prove).

I've seen HR and the union approached many times, they must be crap at my work then because nothing has changed, gender-wise. The main thing that is changing it is greater numbers of females coming through the ranks into management. Not in huge numbers, but enough.

Our university is probably equally twatty to everyone now anyway, they are trying to shed staff in a subtle non-noticable way by performance managing them out without the union fussing too much.

I suspect teaching and lecturing are equally stressful at the mo. I don't feel too stressed though as my immediate line manager (HoD) is a sensible academic and I do much less than I used to of a collegiate nature, so I can meet my performance targets. So, probably similar to teaching!

Yes quite. Women working harder and longer is not a stereotype. In my world it is the absolute norm. It’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex or ethnicity, but clearly women and people of colour lag behind in the university sector. Refusing or complaining is not easy and can cost one in all sorts of ways. I have experienced this at first hand and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

And by the way, I can take the foot off the pedal a bit now that I am a prof, but getting there just did mean working ridiculous hours and outdoing most men who had so much extra help in the soft ways that thetrees outlines.

@ user192. Yes, I went to occupational health and the union. OH were very good and told the dean he was being ridiculous when he asked them whether I could be forced to take medical retirement. (I didn’t say in my OP, but what started as postnatal depression morphed into bipolar disorder by the time DD was 10 months & it’s still a huge problem 7 years later.)

The union rep was shocked at what had happened. I went to him when I was also denied promotion from grade 7 to 8 (as threatened). When I tried to explain to the dean about the impact of my poor mental health, he told me that it was nothing more than ‘writer’s block’ and again said I wasn’t cut out of research.

Anyway, the union rep was supportive, but I didn’t get any help from the union otherwise. I was ready to take them to a tribunal, but I was also still struggling to get the bipolar episodes under control. The union rep warned me that the way I had been treated was nothing in comparison to the bullying they would use if I tried to take them to court. Ultimately, I chose to not proceed as the stress was too much for my mental health & the lack of any union help (beyond the rep’s support) was also a factor.

There is a happy-ish ending. The dean retired a few years ago—around the same time my book received two awards and I got a sizeable AHRC Grant. His successor is utterly different. He was horrified at what I told him. I was promoted to SL and he’s incredibly understanding about how bipolar continues to affect my ability to work long hours. The institution still seems to have big problems, but having a supportive dean who is very conscious about all forms of inequality makes a massive difference.

that’s a ridiculously long post. The memory of the whole affair still gets to me every now and then.

iveburnt, oh, that sounds horrible! I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It really goes to show how much influence one personality can have in academics :(