August 20, 2021

“Everything is Topsy-Turvy”: Academic Mothers Scramble to Keep Their Careers and Families Afloat during COVID-19

By:

Dr. Heather K. Olson Beal (Stephen F. Austin State University)
Dr. Lauren Brewer (Stephen F. Austin State University)
Dr. Chrissy Cross (Stephen F. Austin State University)
Dr. Lauren Burrow (Stephen F. Austin State University)
Dr. Shelby Gull Laird (North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Whiteville)
Dr. Brittany Fish (Sam Houston State University)

Researchers studying work-family policies at institutions of higher education (IHEs) have identified specific policies that promote work-life balance, including tenure clock pause/stop policies, flexible work-scheduling, part-time work options, and parental leave or childcare support (AAUP, 2001; Denson et al., 2018; Drago & Williams, 2000; Hollenshead et al., 2005; O’Meara & Campbell, 2011; Williams et al., 2006). Female faculty, however, continue to face personal and professional inequities and stigmas (Acker & Armenti, 2004; AAUP, 2001; Hirakata & Daniluk, 2009; National Research Council, 2010). Women faculty publish fewer articles, receive fewer grants, are cited less, and are less likely to get tenure or promotion than their male counterparts (Catalyst, 2020; Huang et al., 2020). This “motherhood penalty” stems from women bearing the burden of childcare and other family responsibilities (Ceci et al., 2014). Women of color are particularly underrepresented and marginalized in the academy (Duncan, 2014; Mena, 2016).

When the COVID 19 global pandemic began in spring 2020, the already documented inequities academic mothers face became uncrossable chasms of never-ending work and childcare requirements. Deryungina (2021) found that, between May and July 2020, academic mothers reported a disproportionate reduction in time devoted to research compared to childless academic men and women. Several other studies found that women were spending more time on housework and taking care of children than men (Sevilla and Smith, 2020; Yildrim & Eslen-Ziya, 2021) and that men submitted more articles for publication than women during the early months of the COVID-19 lockdown (Bell and Fong, 2021; Cui et al., 2020; Vincent-Lamarre et al., 2020; Pinho-Gomes, 2021). These research findings suggest that dramatic workplace shifts wrought by COVID-19 disproportionately impacted academic mothers, with faculty women of color experiencing exponential inequities (Boss et al., 2021).

Academic Mothers Starting a New Research Study

In early spring 2020, we (six academic mothers from three different institutions) began to develop a survey and an Institutional Review Board (IRB) application for a study on children in the workplace policies at IHEs. One of the institutions we work for had adopted what we came to not-affectionately call “the kid ban”—a punitive policy effectively banning the children of faculty and staff from campus except for very limited circumstances. One way we elected to cope with our frustration was to plan a research project to study the issue. We made a lot of progress in early March and agreed to return to it after spring break with the goal of distributing the survey in early April.

When Spring Break turns into COVID-19 Quarantine

During spring break, confusion and panic about COVID-19 began to set in around the globe. Our courses moved to all online instruction—first, for a few days, then indefinitely. On Saturday night, March 14, 2020, the lead researcher emailed the research team—all women, mothers, professional colleagues, and friends, and wrote: “Everything is topsy-turvy. I am still hoping we can get the IRB submitted and get the survey out in April”—followed by some to-do items. We decided at the last minute—via a frenetic series of Marco Polo video messages recorded and listened to in between toddler meltdowns, synchronous Zoom courses, and helping our school-aged children navigate pandemic schooling —to add a series of questions about how participants’ institutions were handling the pandemic.

We finalized the survey, got the IRB approved, and distributed the survey in early April. From April through June, while we focused on surviving and keeping our own families safe during a pandemic, we also interviewed academic mothers who were professoring, mothering, and schooling their children from home. Even though it was difficult to add one more project to our pandemic lives (and to ask other academic mothers to sacrifice an hour of their precious time to contribute to our research!), it was validating to hear about how academic mothers from across the country were experiencing the pandemic as mothers and as scholars. Much of the dialogue during the interviews resonated with our personal experiences.

Lessons from Academic Mothers on Working during a Global Pandemic

So what did we learn about academic mothers’ experiences during COVID-19? In short, we learned that the pandemic magnified existing inequities in workload and parenting expectations between men and women faculty. As one article stated, “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women” (interview with Jessica Calarco by Petersen, 2020).

Some interview participants noted that their IHEs and/or supervisors had communicated supportive, sympathetic messages. Others reported that their university and/or supervisors either completely ignored the reality of children of faculty being at home around the clock or, in some cases, micromanaged participants’ work lives and communicated threatening, punitive messages to them. The only explicit support or acknowledgement of the realities of working-parenting-schooling children around the clock from home came in two ways (for some, but not all, participants): (1) option to extend one’s tenure clock by one year and (2) suspension of student course evaluations for Spring 2020.

Participants identified changes in work expectations, including an increase in meetings and in colleagues’ and supervisors’ expectations that–due to the ubiquity of Zoom–they were able to jump on Zoom with little to no notice. Some participants also reported that their IHEs and their supervisors (i.e., chairs, deans) expressed significant concern and demanded lots of understanding and flexibility for students, but little to no concern or flexibility was extended to faculty, which added to the burden faculty, especially women faculty, were already bearing. Our interviews suggest that support for academic mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic came largely from colleagues and, in some cases, direct supervisors. Participants mentioned few, if any, ways in which their institutions supported them.

Looking Forward

Our lived experience and our interviews suggest that academic mothers who worked at institutions, with colleagues, and for supervisors who trusted them as professionals to make decisions about how to best fulfill their work responsibilities fared the best during the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic mothers expressed appreciation for colleagues and supervisors who extended flexibility and grace to them when childcare and pandemic schooling needs interrupted and/or were prioritized over normal work activities. Academic mothers needed (and some, but not all, had) supervisors who communicated to them in supportive, affirming ways about the challenges COVID-19 had wrought upon us.

Academic mothers are an important part of the professoriate. COVID-19 laid bare what we have all known due to our lived realities: IHEs have significant work to do to become more family-friendly workplaces capable of supporting women faculty, in particular, who are raising children while working to attain tenure and/or academic promotion. We hope that our research and our lived experience as academic mothers during a global pandemic can inform future research and policies on the inequities faced by women in the academy and echo Boss et al.’s (2021) call for a COVID-19 reset in which we “change the dominant narrative of the academy from one steeped in individualism, entrepreneurialism, and structural discrimination to one that advances community and justice” (p. 47).

Bios

Dr. Heather K. Olson Beal is a Professor of Education Studies at Stephen F. Austin State University. She teaches courses in educational foundations, family and community engagement, and educational policy and advocacy. Her scholarship examines the issues of school choice and the experiences of women and mothers in academia. She has three feisty, bighearted children who guide and shape her scholarship and teaching.

Lauren E. Brewer, Associate Professor of Psychology and MotherScholar at Stephen F. Austin State University, earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology. Her broad research interests include self-regulation, behavioral consequences of philosophical beliefs, judgment and decision making, issues of parenthood, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Dr. Chrissy Cross is an Associate Professor at Stephen F. Austin State University. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the department of Education Studies. She serves as a Co-PI on two NSF Noyce Scholarship Grants. Her research interests include STEM teacher preparation and induction, STEM curriculum and instruction, qualitative research methods and academic motherscholarhood.

Dr. Lauren E. Burrow is an associate professor of Education Studies at Stephen F. Austin State University. She is a MotherScholar to three young children who often inspire and sometimes collaborate with her on her research agenda which focuses on best practices in teacher education to increase awareness about and actions for addressing social injustices. She is the co-founder and co-instructor of the Community Responsiveness and Engaged Advocacy in Teacher Education (CREATE) program track which promotes Service-Learning projects and partnerships between local school families and community members.

Dr. Shelby Gull Laird is the Head of the Whiteville Branch of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. She focuses on interdisciplinary research that explores natural resources management, nature connection, children, and motherhood.

Brittany Fish, Ed.D., has an extensive history in working in enrollment management and student success divisions within higher education. Dr. Fish has experience in developing academic support programs by utilizing engagement best practices that address the retention of high-needs students. In addition to her administrative experiences, she also holds a faculty position within the field of Human Sciences and has been teaching for six years. She received her doctoral degree from Stephen F. Austin State University in Educational Leadership where her dissertation focused on student success in developmental mathematics based on instructor employment classification through a quantitative investigation. Dr. Fish currently services as the Director of Student Success Technologies at Sam Houston State University.

References

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Bell, M. L., & Fong, K. C. (2021). Gender differences in first and corresponding authorship in public health research submissions during the COVID-19 pandemic. American Journal of Public Health, 111(1), 159–163. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305975

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