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Integrating Work and Life: A
Vision for a Changing Academy
Pat Hutchings, Mary Taylor Huber,
and Chris M. Golde
Imagine
that you could gaze into a crystal ball and see 25 years
into the future. What will the life of an effective and
productive faculty member in your favorite academic
department be like? How will he or she achieve a
productive balance among the various elements of faculty
work and life? The crystal ball seems awfully cloudy to
us; the one thing that seems certain is that the life of
a faculty member joining a department tomorrow will be
quite different from the life lived by a faculty member
retiring today.
These questions are pressing
because the academic profession is nearing a moment of
great change. The large cohort of faculty hired during
the late 1960s and early 1970s will retire during the
next decade, and a new generation is coming in. We
urgently need policies and practices that affirm and
ensure the dignity, humanity and intellectual excitement
of academic careers for higher education to remain
vital. Higher education's future depends on the
creativity with which it can provide for the
professional growth of all faculty and for flexibility
in the shape and timing of their careers.
The
challenges are urgent on two fronts.
Academic
work will require a new and larger set of abilities and
skills. Teaching a more diverse population of students
requires deeper knowledge of pedagogy than before, and
advising now extends into new domains like service
learning and undergraduate research. In most fields,
scholarly work is becoming increasingly collaborative,
interdisciplinary and practically relevant, at the same
time that expectations for productivity are on the rise.
Public service involves greater reciprocity between
academic and community partners, while academic
decision-making in today's complex educational,
financial and legal environment takes more time and
thought. And for many, the trio of teaching, research
and service may be joined by business and economic
enterprises. Integrating these work domains will be a
particular challenge.
"Work - life balance" is
the catchall phrase that encompasses a variety of needs
for flexibility in the timing and pacing of faculty
careers. The ever-increasing demands and pace of
academic life are stretching many faculty members to the
breaking point, placing further pressures on the
boundaries between personal and professional domains.
Workplace policies developed in the past no longer fit
current realities. Women and men alike are trying to
find new ways to handle family responsibilities for
children and aging parents. Few policies address the
needs of the growing proportion of part-time and
non-tenure-track faculty members, nor of the growing
ranks of retiring faculty members who are still vigorous
and able to make meaningful
contributions.
Surprisingly, these two
conversations about the work and life of faculty are
rarely connected. The first set of issues focuses on
changing faculty roles and rewards in keeping with an
expanded conception of scholarly work. The second set of
issues focuses on the balance between faculty work and
life at all of the stages of faculty careers.
In
March of 2006, the Carnegie Foundation in partnership
with the Sloan Foundation convened a group of
distinguished participants active in each of these
conversations, who created a vision of professional
development to meet the challenges for the new academy
(see the online Professional Development for a Changing
Academy Report).
Six principles emerged from
the discussions:
- Begin professional development in college and
intensify in graduate school.
- Provide flexibility for work-and-life issues
throughout the academic career.
- Recognize, develop and reward multiple talents and
contributions.
- Foster long-term planning and preparation.
- Cultivate leadership throughout faculty careers.
- Strengthen networks that encourage learning.
These principles rest on an expansive view of
professional development. On the one hand, policies and
practices (family leave, retirement policies, tenure
clock flexibility) must allow a diverse professoriate to
maximize effectiveness. On the other hand, opportunities
for learning throughout the career (engagement with the
scholarship of teaching, interdisciplinary networks,
civic engagement opportunities) should be widely
available.
Traditional notions of professional
development are broadened in three directions: when, who
and how. Professional development should not be reserved
for assistant professors or for those who are somehow
deemed ineffective; instead, it starts in graduate
school and meets the needs of faculty members throughout
their careers, including through retirement.
Professional development should reach all faculty
members, especially those with temporary appointments
who often feel excluded from the college community. We
must also recognize the important roles played by many
academic staff members. Flexibility, a broadened view of
what the work entails and how the work is done, should
also undergird professional development
efforts.
These principles are just the beginning
of the conversation. We invite readers to dream with us.
How can faculty life in the future balance and integrate
various work roles and the personal and professional? In
light of that answer, what professional development
practices and policies will help ensure that that vision
becomes reality?
Join
the conversation »
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