Is anyone else an academic who has not produced enough research while having kids and is now in the s***?

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

There are lots of academics on MN, just wondering if there is anyone else in my position.

Am pg with 3rd dc in 5 years. Have had hyperemesis and other problems in all 3 pgs, which on top of 2 maternity leaves means heaps of time off work. In the meantime I have completely lost research momentum and produced sod all apart from a few book reviews. I was not submitted for RAE (though fortunately my dept did very well without me so none of my colleagues are holding it against me personally.)
Every time I come back it takes me all my time to get back up to speed with teaching and admin, get on top of all the changes in my field etc, and I only ever seem to make baby steps towards producing anything before I am sick or pregnant again.
Just had uncomfortable meeting with (supportive) HoD at which she broke news to me that I am about to get a scary letter from Personnel and a process is going to start which will probably include ritual disembowelling/change to a teaching only contract if I don't get something submitted before baby is due. Which would be fine as long as the foetus behaves and sickness holds off - am only just back at work after 2 months off with HG.

Serves me right for having children, doesn't it?

Highondiesel, it's a problem for me, it used to be more so as I was managing big EU projects so there were a lot of international meetings and conferences, and I didn't/don't live in the SE so the tunnel wasn't convenient. I have cut down my flights hugely - from about 10 work trips abroad a year to one work flight in the last 3 years, I avoid foreign conferences basically now, which is another knell in the career coffin but I care more about environmental issues than about the career, in the end.

It might change though, if I got involved on another EU project (which I would love, they were my favourite research projects) I'd have to fly for some meetings, I don't see how you can do cross national research without meeting up occasionally, but I'd still cut down on any extra flying to conferences.

nail in coffin, death knell?

am rushing....

Fennel, thanks for that, very interesting. The EU projects sound wonderful.

I know exactly what you mean, I have cut down a lot, but it is hard to cut it out completely. In my field, American scholars are very important, so I am currently aiming to go over there once every 3 years or so to remind them that I exist (rather than 3 times a year which is expected if you are a high-flyer).

Of course lots of transatlantic travel isn't really that compatible with DCs either. But having children also makes it harder to spend 24+ hours getting to a European destination via Eurostar, which I would quite happily have done in the past.

Anyway, this is probably another thread - GAWK?

Hi,

I am already on this thread but I hope you don't mind if I namechange for this one.

I have had a really awful day. I cried in front of colleagues today when our departmental head outlined some of the steps that will be taken to reduce our research time in future. This is because the RAE, which we did well in, is leading to less money for my field because of the uplift being given to STEM subjects.

The message we got was basically your unit is not performing and unless you perform better in the next year, we will reduce your research time to nothing. I do not know what more I could have done (I'm not going over my circumstances here again as will identify me) but needless to say I am at my limit in terms of commitments. Should have focused more, should have produced more but given the juggling I have done I think I've done OK.

My Head - who will not be the axe-wielder in fact - thinks I am too invested in my academic identity as an intellectual and I should just give up and do the things I'm good at instead of constantly trying and being unhappy for never quite making it.

Perhaps he's right.

But I suppose I had hoped, idealistically, that there should be a way to fit in having babies around research - say a recognition of a period of more limited output. But there just isn't, is there? You sink or swim whatever your circumstances. I have lost all my fight.

Oh Redcard, that is really tough.

When you say you think you've done ok given the juggling, I bet you are right. It's funny being in this mad position where you're told you're not adequate - part of your brain believes it but another part (the sane bit) says 'hang on a minute....'

@ your head's assessment of you. I think you would know if he was right - HoDs can be amazingly perceptive or they can get it so terribly wrong, IME. What he said is not helpful.

There should be a way to fit babies in, yes. Number 2 on the CAWK agenda.

The part-time agenda will be a key part of the overall agenda.

Oh, and can we make it stand for 'capable academics with kids' rather than 'competent'? Just because the process where they try to get rid of you for not having enough output is called 'research capability'.

Oh Redcard, I'm so sorry to hear about your terrible day. I'd just like to echo what Kathy said to you: you are a much better judge of how well you are doing than your HoD. Try and stay positive.

As regard to the maternity leave issue, it's a tricky one and I think deserves much emphasis in the mythical manifiesto. I also work in a very shorthanded department with no hope of any type of money or replacement for me. As a result the compromise is that I reduce my classes next semester so I can do all my teaching before DD1 is born, and only (!) have teaching responsabilities in the Jan-May semester. It's a bit crap, but it was the best I could negotiate.

Chances of chaning things here are pretty slight, but I am all for supporting your joint effort on behalf of my UK colleagues

It is so hard to stay positive.

I had 3 publications and one maternity leave in the last census; a research grant and lots of teaching/admin responsibility. I still didn't get submitted to the RAE because someone decided my 'publications were not of sufficient quality'.

Since then, I have been a named co-I on a couple of other submissions, albeit small, galvanised (albeit yet without results) our rabble research group, done a VERY full load of teaching and admin, and - oh yeah - had a period of mat leave just at the end of the project. And am still in the academic year since the mat leave. Meanwhile, 2 more joint authored publications have come out since the mat leave, I have another ready to submit, I was invited onto an ESRC review panel this year but turned it down because of other commitments. I try to help others develop their emergent research. I am co-I on a large bid which is about to be submitted. And I have some minor publications out this year, but they are at least publications.

It's not like I've been sitting on my arse doing nothing. I guess I need more focus. And more ruthlessness. But I don't know if I can do that stuff. A colleague used the phrase 'don't get even, get ahead'. I wish it were that simple.

I can't get over feeling it's just me: I am too fragile to be an academic. Or just too crap. But as they say, it is hard to feel positive when the attitude is that the 'beatings will continue until morale improves'.

Redcard, what a horrible situation. Poor you. You don't sound in the least bit crap: you have done loads - certainly more than many of colleagues without children!

I don't understand why they are having a go at you despite the fact that your department did well in the RAE. Let's face it, the funding allocation will probably be even worse next time round, and however much we all produce, it won't change that. So hectoring and demoralising people seems like an idiotic strategy.

I am also of your HOD's assessment of you. This might be overly cynical, but I wonder whether they are trying to push you down the admin and teaching route because you are good at it, and it will lighten their loads?

This will not make you feel any better, but we have been told something very similar: if we don't improve by the next RAE/F, half the department will be made redundant, and that capability proceedings will be started against anyone not coming up to scratch in the meantime. (They have closed the teaching only route.) In my place at least, there is a lot of macho posturing at the moment.

I hate knowing that it is the people who are good citizens who are being victimised, while the ruthless selfish bastards proper. I am obviously a hopeless idealist, but I have always thought that academia should be a bit more high-minded that that....

Hang on in there - sounds like you have got lots of things in the pipeline. I know how hard it is to 'get ahead' when your confidence has been battered into the ground. I hate all this internal judging of whether publications are 'good enough' for RAE - it is inevitably bollocks.

Thanks for your comments. I am going to sleep on it and regroup. I am going to redo my research output list and CV tomorrow and see how bad it looks. And I am going to submit the paper, and make sure that grant goes in.

And then I am going to morph into a ruthless, selfish bastard and say no to everything because it is STILL the only way to get on apparently.

RedCard your situation sounds so stressful, I hope you're OK. Being at such an early stage myself, I'm finding this discussion really eye-opening and a bit terrifying! (Although what I'm currently finding most terrifying is that I'm desperately trying to produce my first ever paper for publication and FINDING IT REALLY HARD and am wondering if perhaps I'm just not up to it. Aaaaaargh)!

Anyway, I am wondering whether I've been a bit naive about the benefits of being an academic, although having also worked in the City, I have no illusions that it's better elsewhere! Isn't one of the things that makes it both better and sometimes much worse to be an academic that we tend to love our work (not, generally, doing it purely for the money), and have a massive personal investment in it?

This isn't an original point at all, but one of the things that I find incredibly frustrating about academics is that there's a lot of work churned out about work-life balance in the commercial world, and the structural and cultural problems faced by women, but there is no attempt to mend their own ways. I wonder if there's any research on THAT out there, or is everyone to scared to go there?! Physician heal thyself ... and all that ....

Nopubs - I wonder if it is because people have the view that flexibility is everything and all else naturally follows. Flexibility is a great benefit of academia but is also a downside in that it can lead to having no division between home and work and always feeling that you could/ should/ are being pressured to do more. The area I work in - bizarrely - also has a bit of a 9-5 culture (NHS related) - so I am very aware of people 'looking' when I leave at 2.45 to collect DD from school - on the other hand I don't have an hour coffee break in the morning, as many do (I think they call it bonding)!
Redcard - really sorry for what's happening to you. Is there anyone else you can talk to in RL - someone who understands where you are coming from but also where you need to go and how to get there while maintaining your personal integrity? There must be people out there like that?

Redcar, , I know a couple of women in your situation, it's happening in various universities at the moment, including mine.

nopubsyet, there is a lot of research on work-life balance in academia (academics love to research themselves, and it's an easily accessed sasmple). I've read/heard lots of papers on the subject. The double bind of flexibility meaning you end up working harder than in an inflexible job. Plus the bind of actually liking the work and wanting to do it for its own sake.

And actually, yes, I did change my working habits as a result of working in the work-life balance research field for 9 years, I was never one of the workaholics but was surrounded by them, and I did take a step back - downshift, basically - 3 years ago. We moved from a big city with lots of good career prospects for me to a beautiful sunlit village near the beach in the loveliest part of England (I might be biased) and now I do various contract research and teaching jobs I'm overqualified for, for less money, and certainly less career status, but I do have a very good work-life balance these days. (just not very good career prospects unless I'm prepared to move or commute).

Jesus, this is so shite isn't it? I do wonder what would happen if someone took some test cases via the EHRC. The UCU seem singularly silent and shit on these issues (the 'brotherhood' and pay seem to be the main focus...), although I know our local association are looking very carefully at the gender implications of what happens as the fallout of the latest RAE.

But I'm sure exactly the same things happened last time and I simply cannot believe that it is OK to let women's academic careers founder like this. Do we need a proper, big campaign, colleagues, and not just a manifesto?

Fennel, I'd be interested to know if you can recommend some specific research on women in academia (I'm sure lots of other people on this thread would distract themselves from other work with it too )

Redcard, sorry to hear your news it sounds like you've been productive, why are they coming to you after a poor RAE result when you weren't even returned!! That doesn't make sense.

Suspecting (like Highondiesel) some ulterior motives along the line of lessening other colleagues teaching loads.

Universities are getting squeezed into producing every more prescribed kinds of research to justify their existence along the global economic competitiveness line. You may be bearing the brunt of your HoD's poor reaction to some of this pressure. Totally unfair. I say yes to a bit of 'ruthless selfish bastard' -- it should be in the manifesto!

Redcar - what is the union like at your place? Might be an idea to talk to them about the pressure being placed on you.
You sound productive to me and it sounds insane to put pressure on members of a department that was successful in the RAE.

I think we do need to get more used to accessing unions in order to get our issues raised. Some years ago now myself and another colleague raised the issue of our university's minimal maternity leave provision with our union. We attended a union meeting and were horrified to find that we were the only women there. Everyone there was interested in the points we raised and in fact the union worked hard with the university management to change maternity provision (it came too late for the two of us of course, but never mind).

My point is that these men had simply never considered these issues until they had slightly mad pregnant women jumping up and down in front of them. Equally, the union won't bring up concerns about pressure on women academics on maternity leave or just after maternity leave unless they are made aware of them.

Fennel - your situation sounds lovely (despite - or because of - the lack of prospects) - and even more so because you have come to it as a positive choice. It seems that Redcard is being given lower careeer prospects without the better work-life balance.
I'm sure there is a labelling process that goes on, with some people being seen as research high flyers, and others as teaching/ admin fodder. And it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'd be interested in any refs or pointers too Fennel (though definitely don't want to make a negative contribution to your work-life balance if it's a hassle to find them). I can always do some searching myself when I've got this blasted article written! Really loving the sound of your life, sitting as I am in a grimy city suburb!

Redcard, that really sucks about the RAE. If it's any consolation I know a leading prof who had difficulty getting submitted because academics in the unit she should have gone in with (she works in an interdisciplinary field so it was a different department from her own) were snotty about her work. Which made everyone who knew her field ROFL because we all knew how good her stuff was, but at the same time it just goes to show how arbitrary these judgements were.

It will take all your grit and determination to bounce back after a decision like that, but you can do it. You know you can produce research and the invitation to sit on the ESRC panel is a far better indication of the quality of your work than one silly HoD decision.

How good are the people you have co-authored with? If they're good, that's another indication you are good because they want to work with you. If they're not, maybe you need to be more strategic in your choice of co-authors? It also sounds to me like you put a lot of effort into helping other people with their research, so maybe for a little while you need to put that on hold.

I can really identify with 'It's not like I've been sitting on my arse doing nothing.' I did do 4 reviews, 3 conference papers, got one book contract and have nearly got another in the time when I'm meant to have not been research productive. In between my 2 maternity leaves and 4 long sick leaves. Research incapable, moi? I don't think so.

Still. I had a highly amusing thought this morning about my own position. While it is of course crap and stupid of me to be sitting on loads of half-finished articles and to have done loads of stuff with no high-quality outputs to show for it, this puts me in a great position for the coming REF, because if I had published a bit but not enough for the last RAE, it would all have been wasted. None at all was clearly a much better strategy. Will pretend this was the plan all along.

It's not just people further down the system being treated badly though, several of my women professor friends are having similar problems - the ones who aren't getting huge grants and lots of high profile publications, while carrying full teaching loads, are being pushed out. And I have one friend/colleague who I think of as a rare good example of someone who has managed to be a very successful academic (professor in prestigious uni department), plus having children, plus she's still a lovely caring person. But she's also fed up of being pissed on by the uni hierarchy and her hard work not acknowledged.

I'm a member of a UCU researcher whinge group, lots of disgruntled people with stories of how they've been badly treated - a bit like this thread, in fact.

Foufoucault, my situation is both lovely and crap, depending on how you look at it. Ideally, I wouldn't have had to give up on my career prospects (I like this work, and I'm good at it - is there a modesty-failure emoticon to insert here?) to achieve a reasonable work-life balance and quality of life outside work. And I do mind, I would have liked both.

Re having a campaign, as Lupus suggests, I agree we need to make people more aware of the issues.
I think there are a lot of people out there who generally believe in equality but it probably won't have ever crossed their minds that, say, having a year of maternity leave puts you at more than a year's worth of disadvantage.

I was wondering about getting THES to cover the issues. I thought about emailing the editor but didn't want to link to the thread when people have revealed so much on here and I don't quite know how a journalist might use it. People talk on here because they know there's no way their middle-aged male HoD is going to read Mumsnet but if they were quoted in THES they might be put in a very dodgy position.

Is there any way we can get this covered without risking people's anonymity, do you think?

Lupus, and nopubs, I'll look out the references, later on, am supposed to be marking today.

x-posts with Kathy about life as a professor having its crap aspects too, that is one of the things that made me reconsider my efforts to progress up the academic ladder. It doesn't always get better as you get further up.

Kathy - like the idea of raising the issue more widely.
Don't like the idea of linking to the thread!

kathy, you could always contact THES and offer a journalist "quotable contacts", then give CAWKers a phone number.

I like the ideas of a campaign much better than everyone simply putting on their selfish get=ahead hats. this way we could potentially achive both...

this thread has left me terrified - I'm on my 2nd postdoc position (the first was an unmitigated disaster, and although I got some good work out of it, have just seen said work published - 2 papers!- without any acknowledgment of my input, so am fuming about that already) and expecting my 1st child later on this year.
Luckily my new bosses all have kids, and in fact folk without children are in the minority in our group - but it's still worrying.

I was actually advised by several well meaning male profs during my undergrad and PhD years that I had to choose between children and an academic career - even my father, who is an academic, has said women are useless after they have kids, and he has been trying to push me into leaving academia (have told him where to stick his antiquated opinions, but still).
I think I'm going to have to join CAWK later on this year

I don't want to sound defeatist, of course I think the system should be challenged. However, I don't think at the moment a campaign would have much of an impact. It's not a topic which is high on the political agenda at the moment - a few years ago, flexible working, gender equity and the gender pay gap, parental leave, and so on were all part of the new labour agenda, also important in EU policy circles. But at the moment, with credit crunch and recession, plus all policy units assuming a change to a conservative government, these issues are not seen as central. Instead there is talk of reducing the flexible working/parental leave rights and plans to tide employers through a recession.

(I should know, it's one reason most people in my field are strugging to get research money at the moment. Work-life balance and similar woffly leftie ideas are off the agenda).

So while, of course, it matters that women in academia are struggling (and the gender pay gap is quite big in academia compared to to other professions), I don't think it's viewed as important at the moment. I doubt there'll be much sympathy in the wider world.