Tag: work

The Incidental #Scimom

Jeff and Kiyomi Deards Relaxing With Family
Jeff and Kiyomi Deards Relaxing With Family

As far back as I can remember I’ve always managed to take alternate routes in life. From friendships and education, to career path, I’ve always marched to my own invisible (and possibly neurotic) drummer. My path to being a #Scimom is typical of my life, but different from most.

Whatever the reason I’ve never felt the urge to procreate. My oldest friend reminded me recently of a conversation we had about 20 years ago when we were about 12 where I expressed my disinterest in being a birth parent but was willing to adopt if needed to ensure my friends and relatives children always had a home. I have always been passionate about education and mentoring, and had a reputation for “being good with kids”.

In spite of this lifelong lack of desire to procreate I have found myself in the position of being a #Scimom through marriage. Fortunately, I enjoy a very positive relationship with my step-children. Perhaps it is because we’re closer in age than is usual, I’m more like the young hip aunt than a step-mom. Basically I skipped to the fun part, no diapers, no teen age rebellion, I came on the scene just in time for my step-kids to be in or starting college. Both of them have successfully graduated from college and been on their own for several years. The biggest challenge for me is to maintain my slightly older and wiser rep with the kids, and not foist my views of what they should do on them. I think it’s a little easier for me than for their parents, because while I love them dearly I did not spend years protecting them from life, dreaming about what they might do. What I see is their potential, all the different and varied careers that I imagine them succeeding in using the skills they are passionate about, and I know that even though I can think of several careers that I think both of them could be successful in there are probably a dozen more that I haven’t thought of that they’d probably love even more.

The major family issue we deal with is that I am the faculty member who drags their “trailing spouse” around with them. The whole family has been very supportive about my career, but I know it’s hard on everyone that we moved from California to Nebraska. Thankfully the kids have been really supportive of my career change; being a science librarian is very different from being the quality control manager at an environmental testing laboratory! And even though they’re starting to spread out geographically themselves, I know they miss having us in the same general location as their mom and step-father. So how do we (my husband and I) try and mitigate our absence? It’s less than one year since our move and my husband has gone back to visit family twice. We have also made a deliberate effort to be extra early with birthday and Christmas cheer so that even though we’re only able to call on the phone instead of meeting up for dinner, at least the presents are there early/on time. Thanks to the internet and smartphones we are able to keep in touch through Facebook, text messages, and the odd phone call, but it’s really not the same as visiting in person. Hopefully once things settle down we’ll be able to bring them out to see us periodically or set up a more regular visitation schedule.

Am I good #Scimom? I don’t know. But location aside, I put my family first because they really are the most important thing.

P.S. I list our names as Jeff and Kiyomi in that order because that way our names are in alphabetical order, can we say compulsive? There’s a reason I was drawn to physical chemistry and cataloging ;-)

Tales From The Tenure Track: Vol. I.I

Photo of people talking with poster presenters at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Undergraduate Research Fair

Showing Up Is Half The Battle

In a recent lunch conversation one of my fellow new professors (not a librarian) remarked that they were surprised how rarely they see other new faculty at important university events. There are about four or five of us out of about 30-40 new faculty who bump into each other quite a bit (1-2 times per month) and we almost never encounter the other new faculty members.

To us this is both perplexing and worrying. As new tenure track faculty members there is a lot of pressure, people need to setup and start research, publish a certain minimum amount of times, prepare new teaching materials, serve on committees, present and attend conferences, and try and maintain some sort of work-life balance. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, and we often do. In spite of the crazy whirlwind of being first year tenure track faculty my colleague and I have made the time to attend several campus events.

Why you should be involved on campus:

People from every major college on campus will review your folders when you go up for tenure.
Do you really want their only impression of you to be from those folders?

Someday you will stick your foot in your mouth. You will do so badly, likely at the worst possible moment.

If people know you and your work they are more likely to look at it as an anomaly and not a regular occurrence.

University officials, especially at large universities, keep track of who attends their events.

Do you really want to be that professor no one ever sees at anything? A lot of the events I meet my colleagues at are sponsored by the Senior Vice Chancellor of the Office of Research, the Chancellor of the University, or the Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs. Now I don’t know about you, but my colleague and I feel that it’s a very good thing to have these people see our faces on a semi-regular basis in a positive manner at events which they think are important.

Collaborators, Co-teachers, and Friends

Eventually you will want or need on-campus collaborators for work, you’ll probably also want people to hang out with after work the odd Friday, or people to hang out with over pizza and some movies. It will be very difficult to identify who you should collaborate with, or who you want to be friends with if you never get out and meet your colleagues.

Your tenure track position should be a career not a job.

Not being involved in the campus community makes you seem more like an office worker than a tenure track faculty. Being a faculty member is not just about academics, publications, and presentations, it’s about service and the sense of community within your college or university.

I’m not advocating going to every event you’re invited to, that would be impossible. Every campus has a variety of activities and professional development workshops available. In general my problem is not finding something to go to, but deciding which events are the highest priority to go to. You should be able to make at least 2-3 campus events per month with very little strain on your schedule, if you can’t take 3-4 hours a month to be part of the campus community you should ask yourself if what you’re doing is really that important, that vital. If the answer is yes you might want to talk with your chair about restructuring your time or possibly lightening your duties, and re-examining your priorities.