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?

Will do Phdlife, scan's in about three weeks time so I'm keeping everything crossed until then that all is OK. If so, I might need some additional hand-holding from this lovely group before I go to my mentor and tell her the news! For some reason (Haribo related I wonder?) I seem to be developing a bit of a belly already, which threatens to give the game away rather earlier if I'm not careful.

Well done Kathy re: research app.

I've just finished a first draft of my revise and resubmit. Apart from methodology, which I have now just remembered was the major problem with the first one. Hmmm, why do I hate writing about methodologies so much ...

I don't really feel qualified to contribute to this thread substantively but I do have another possibly interesting diversion to mention.

[I have read the first and last third of this thread btw, and felt a cold chill go over me at the mention of the words R&R... I started PhD in 1999 at a very well known (literally) redbrick university with a big clock tower, had a second year progress report in which my supervisor wrote "at this rate Licious will not even get an MPhil in three years" having never said similar face to face, handed it in Nov 2003 after writing up while working full time, had to ask the uni to remind him to assign some examiners in May 2004, viva took 8 hours, 7.5 of which I was in tears, scraped an R&R result, handed in a second thesis a year later under some guidance from the external examiner, second viva resulted in major corrections dressed down as minors (can't have majors on a R&R'd thesis) then a few more edits and eventually graduated in summer 2006. Supervisor had washed hands of me even before I submitted the very first time.]

Anyway... I am no longer in academia. But while a PhD student I was the postgrad rep on the students' union, then the chair of the national version (not the NUS), then the president of the European committee, Eurodoc, which is still going very strong. They run a conference each year and have working groups on international/inter-sectoral mobility, family/women specific issues, supervisory relationships/structures etc etc. Due to the different paths to PhD across Europe (mainly the non-existence of Masters as a postgrad qualification elsewhere), the organisation sort of represents anything within a few years either side of 'doctoral'.

And it does really represent issues, not just a talking shop. While I was La Presidenta de la Junta (the constitution was written in Spanish because that's where we legally founded Eurodoc) I attended academic mobility committees in the Education/employment department of the European Commission, which had real money to throw at solutions to cliches like the transatlantic Brain Drain, the Mommy Track (leaky pipeline) etc.

So glad I left research. It was misogynistic even to a single female with no child-bearing likelihood in sight.

Lexilicious - what a tale! Sounds horribly familiar, I can think of a few colleagues here with a similar supervisory 'style'. What a bastard.

Eurodoc sounds terrific. If only I was a few years younger (cough).

Vulpus - I always get loads of comments and always one reviewer who is rather blunt shall we say and just makes me want to cry.

Usually I copy and paste into a word document and then just go through it responding to each comment either with a 'done' / 'altered' / 'added' etc or a very polite (crossing my fingers) 'ooh what a wonderful point you make but I thought differently' and then just ignore it.

I will never ever ever ever get over having 5 A4 pages of comments from two reviewers on my first ever manuscript. Sob

Lexilicious, thanks for that link - Eurodoc does look good, if only so we can advise PhD students about it in the future.
(I have a vague fantasy that at some point in the future if I ever get my research career up and running successfully, the best way for me to contribute to the university's training programme on developing research skills would be to lead a session on combining research with children.... Looking back, this is the one bit of training I could really have done with myself over the last few years but am only getting it now, from you lovely CAWKers!)

Shocking story about your supervisor. Question - did your university have formal structures in place at that time which meant you got explicit feedback and input from a number of academics, not just your supervisors? We are quite good now at doing annual reviews by a panel of other academics, and hopefully this should make it harder for individual supervisors to cause problems for students as you experienced - or perhaps the structures were there but didn't work?

lol Kathy - your fantasy reminds me - myself, 2 female + 1 male colleague went to a talk once on "women in academia". Very pg speaker gave horrifying stats and tried to get us to consider how badly we get shafted for breeding, and possible strategies for getting round it. Of course none of us baby phd's were remotely interested in dc's at that stage - except the bloke, who was a father of 3.

Lexilicious - what a horrifying story.

Hi Kathy, thanks for the sympathy! I was never going to be a leader in my field but I did get quite upset that my PhD student years were made into a battle or a test rather than an apprenticeship. The viva is the test, surely up to that point the student and supervisor are on the same side!!

There were processes, but they were weak and easy to just pay lip service to. For example in the sciences there was a rule that the student and supervisor must meet at least 15 times a year, in the arts 10 times, for at least half an hour one on one. That's it. No requirement for PhD students to be involved in lab meetings or treated as part of the research group. (Some groups did of course, under their own steam. I tried to start a regular journal-reviewing group but my supervisor was too busy and thought that it would end up with him telling us what we should be understanding from the papers we'd precis for each other. Yeah, exactly. Like a supervisor. Guidance.)

And there was a first and second year progress board, where the student should write about a chapter's worth of their work. Some would do a short presentation to the whole department, and the report would go through the research group and the senior department board and eventually land back with the student carrying comments. My first year was crap so I really tried hard in second year (unfortunately coincided with Foot And Mouth crisis so I couldn't get access to much land for fieldwork, so had to invent stuff to do in the lab). That's the "won't even get..." comment I mentioned - you'd think it would have come up in one of those 15 half hours of one-to-ones wouldn't you? or in comments on drafts of the report? or as a gentle aside after the research group had met and the report had passed up to the next level? But no.

The daft thing is that I was doing all this student representation stuff and I knew there were procedures, complaints and review mechanisms, and I knew how damaging it could be to a career to have poor supervision. I even did the independent observer role for a couple of other people in dispute with their depts. I just could not see it happening to myself.

Another link for you all: PHD Comics - dangerously compelling!

ah, R&R...still smarting over mine , tried my damnedest to get the darned thing done over my reading week but the article is quite 'old' stuff (PhD days! ah long since gone, I actually look back to them with fondness since I started work) and just couldn't get into it.

Not helped by having to flap about stuff like lack of institutional headed paper for flaming academic references and uploading stuff onto the student electronic web (ffs why can't thye just use libraries like we did?!)

Had a talk with my Head of School at my appraisal about whether if I stay p/t I will ever, ever get promoted. He was very supportive and said as I've published more than could be expected for a 0.6 fte he would put me forward but rather darkly hinted that 'other constituencies' in the university are not as supportive of p/t applications for promotion....

Agingoth
I am sure you know this already - but they absolutely cannot refuse you promotion because you are p-t.
When I did my promotion (from L to SL) I had taken 7 months mat leave (not the same as p-t I know) and I decided not to mention it in the statement (I think there is stuff about this way back on this thread) - although it is on my CV. I had actually done as much as someone who hadn't taken any leave. Do you think this might be the case for you? In whcih case you could play down the p-t aspect? On the other hand, of course, why should we have to do this? And are you 'letting the side down' by doing this? I am still not sure what the answer is.
I wonder aswell if there is a lot of senior managers being negative about being p-t becuase it makes things harder to manage - without actually giving people a positive opporunity to try and make it work for them?
Sorry - bit rambling - off work with ill child.

Hi guys.

CAWK facebook group now set up, for those of you who didn't see the other thread about this.

It is a secret group, which means that if you would like to join you will need to CAT me or email [email protected] with your FB id or email address so I can send you an invite - it won't be visible in FB searches, or on your FB profile.

I did it, I did it, I finally submitted that damn article

and now I am SO going to bed!!!

Hello everybody!

Kathy - I would like to join the Facebook group but I'm a bit scared of the lack of anoymity - I'm not sure if I'm sufficiently discreet!

Until I get myself together for that step into the technological unknown, I have had my scan now and all is well, thank goodness. So I am ready to announce my news to work! Following which, I will try and negotiate an extension to my two year postdoc contract to reflect whatever period of maternity leave I take. The thing is, I have no idea where to start and with whom. I don't know whether to start with my mentor who may or may not be sympathetic, to go to HR and have a quiet chat with them first about the options (though I always find HR a bit ... well, not that empowered), or to have a chat with the Union. Does anyone out there have any experience of this at all, or what might be the best thing to do?

Thanks in advance and I look forward to joining you on Facebook soon!

Hi no pubs,

I would contact HR first just to get their take on your options. Though they may not by mr or ms dynamic, it's confidential, they should be able to answer straightforward questions, and because they don't know you or you them, there isn't really anything to lose. At worst you have made a phonecall that isn't particularly helpful.

Good luck!

just had article rejected. So, that was a lot of evenings put to good use then

I'm not an academic but I attended a flexible working seminar last year that had Averil MacDonald, Professor of Science Communication at Reading University. She was inspirational and very enthusiastic about flexible working, I was wondering if she might be someone who could mentor / support women in academia....

uk.linkedin.com/pub/averil-macdonald/3/aa9/332

Sorry to here that, PhDlife. Did you get any useful feedback?

Thanks for the link, Deirdre. It is interesting that she is a professor of Science Communication. Perhaps that gives you a bit more leeway than a traditional role?

Events which I can't go into here have proved beyond all shadow of doubt that there is no possibility of flexible working or part time in my place. Bah!

Same here PhDlife. Trying to look on the bright side though; at least I now have a draft paper with feedback to work on - that's got to be better than a blank sheet of paper? Did you get useful comments or did the reviewers just not get it?

Averil MacDonald looks interesting - did you get the impression that she's welcome people contacting her?

dunno if any of them were useful, skiffler. I can see how to do what they want, kinda, though not within the journal's word limit. I think, too, that perhaps there's just no point - I've been writing/rewriting this stupid piece since 2006 (in between 2 babies and moving country) - and it came from the least interesting part of my dissertation anyway. Then too, I have no idea what the journals are like these days, having been out of work for so long, so I wouldn't know where else to send it.

Inclination now is to drop it and, when current domestic stress dies down, try something new.

Or, write trashy novels instead. I just about have the braincells for that, at the end of the SAHM day.

I got the impression that Averil MacDonald would be interested in people contacting her - she said the usual "seminar leader has my contact details should anyone wish to contact me.." I also got the impression that she sees herself as someone who could and should use her position to promote Flexible working.

Just wanted to give out a small cheer.... I'm 39+2 pregnant and just submitted a paper that I've been working on for, oh, a good few years! Nothing like a deadline.

Am finding it strange, but good, not to be in my department and working for the first time in 12 years. Feeling a bit more mentally healthy (apart from the terror and delight of anticipating parenthood!)

I've got one of those, too, phdlife; a paper of old stuff that I've been working on on and off for a couple of years now and looks ropier and less interesting every time I go back to it. You're one up on me though, I've not managed to finish it off and submit it yet - not sure what journal to go for and whether it's actually of any interest to anyone... Maybe I'll join you with the trashy novel - now, must do some reading around the subject...

Congratulations on submitting your paper comeonbishbosh - talk about cutting it fine!

bump

Thanks for bumping for me madwoman... just marking my place and will be back to read in the morning... when I've writeen my 1000 word quota for the day, which is going to have to happen in the next 31 minutes, hmm.

Hi. Don't know if this thread has died/transferred to facebook or somewhere else? I do hope not or that I can join you! I've been in hiding for a couple of months as work has been manic, BUT I did submit a paper I'd been working on for years and had forgotten about during maternity leave last month - and have just chatted up a publisher and submitted a book proposal today! Not that either have actually been ACCEPTED yet of course...but until they are rejected i can dream...

Hi all,

Is this thread still going or would anyone be interested in resurrecting it? I'd like to join, if there's any interest.