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47 Amy is a thirty-six-year-old second-year professor at Flagship University and an emerging scholar in her field. She’s been married for two years and has a new baby. She thought a lot about the timing of having her child, and she wasn’t sure she was ready in terms of her career, but she felt ready in terms of her biological clock. Amy worried that if she waited to have a child her fertility might pass her by, especially since she wants to have more than one child. Amy initially wished for a May baby, but she found herself pregnant sooner than expected, and the baby came in February. Her husband, an attorney who recently joined a law firm in town, didn’t feel he could take time off work to help with the baby. Amy didn’t really want to take time off during the semester, but with the February due date life became complicated. She worked until she had the baby, and then she arranged to have someone cover her classes for the three weeks until spring break in March. Her mother came to visit to help with the baby, so Amy could go back to work after spring break until the end of the semester. If she can make it to the end of the semester, she figures she’ll be fine. Amy will take the summer off from teaching but hopes to write. She plans to resume a full schedule in the fall. Amy talked to her department chair about options for taking leave and was informed that she was free to take leave for the whole semester, but that it would be unpaid beyond what she has saved for sick time (which isn’t much, since she is new). It’s not a financial option for her to take unpaid leave, and she was nervous about depleting her sick chapter 4 O Managing Work and Family in the Early Career 48 academic motherhood time in case she or the baby got sick. She also worried about how it would look to take time off so soon after getting to campus. What would her colleagues think if she was not around all semester? She’s asked about how other people have handled their pregnancies and learned of only one person who took a leave of absence, but she had left the university. At this juncture, Amy feels like she can do it all without a leave of absence. She noticed in the faculty handbook that there is a provision to stop the tenure clock for a year in the event of the birth of a child, but at this point she’s thinking it is better to avoid that. She feels she is getting herself established, and since her department chair didn’t mention stopping the tenure clock she figures it best not to, as well. In terms of day-to-day life Amy feels she has things relatively under control. She is happy with the flexibility of her position and feels that both her work and her home life are satisfying. She feels the challenges are doable. While she can’t use the word“balance” to describe her life, she certainly feels things are under control. Amy likes both aspects of her life—work and family—and derives fulfillment from both. She finds that having a baby gives her a sense of perspective that she didn’t have before. She also only has finite time in her day, so she feels she is more efficient. In some ways, having a baby has made her more productive. Amy wishes there were more women in her department who were doing this—and she certainly is getting a lot of positive attention from her graduate students, who are watching her to see how it will all work out. On good days, she feels this is the ideal life. On bad days, she worries about getting tenure and getting everything done in a manner that matches her high expectations for herself. This chapter explores the interface between work and family from the perspective of early-career faculty—women on the tenure track who are also mothers of young children. Specifically, we examine how faculty women negotiate the demands of earning tenure and the demands of motherhood, looking at junior faculty perceptions of work/family conflict and compatibility . We examine these perceptions to provide insight into academic life, in general, and...

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