Winter 2004

Volume 33
Number 2

Balancing Act

This issue of On Campus With Women is devoted to the perennial conflict between academic work and family responsibilities.

Traditionally cast as a problem for young academic women who have (or want to have) children, work/life conflicts are now understood more broadly. Like faculty, staff and students also contend with competing demands. Increasingly, men are joining women in calling for and taking advantage of family-friendly policies. And, more and more, such polices accommodate children of aging parents as well as parents of teething toddlers. Despite such progress, much remains to be done.

The aim of this issue, then, is two-fold. On one hand, this issue recognizes that, despite decades of efforts by academics, young female faculty still face the dual pressures of tenure and family and, in many cases, continue to bear the primary responsibility for child care. On the other hand, this issue highlights recent efforts to affect change in the institution, to fundamentally recast the academic career cycle in ways that are more family-friendly for male and female academics over the course of their careers, and to broaden the scope of family-friendly policies in ways that address the needs of non-tenure track faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate students.

National Initiative for Women in Higher Education

Reflecting on her own experiences, Yolanda Moses asks, "What is it going to take for institutions to have the will to change the policies and the culture to value the role of parent in the academic workplace?" She argues in her article for the National Initiative column that such change requires bold policies and bold leadership. "Without clear policies," she warns, "individual faculty are left to devise ad hoc solutions. But without clear leadership, even good policies are ineffective."