Accountability Group

Please find this post at: https://clairekampdush.com/2018/05/02/accountability-group/ 

As many of my readers know, and for that matter, anyone who talks to me knows, I am an avid consumer of productivity tips, from blog posts to books. As the mother of four boys ages 5 to 15, married to a full-time employed co-parent, I am super busy all the time. And, I also love to not work and have fun with my family and friends. So, when I am at work, I need to get things done. This can be a problem because I also love to waste time reading news websites, online shopping, engaging on social media, etcetera. I use a ton of productivity strategies (see this post for some of them) to try to create accountability around getting the things done that will advance my career. For me, that is getting my grants and publications written, revised, and submitted.

Stream in the woods

The view on a walk during my 2016 InkWell writing retreat.

One of my favorite tips for productivity came from Michelle Boyd of InkWell writing retreats. I went on one of Michelle’s amazing retreats in 2016 (cannot recommend her enough), and one of the best parts of retreating was my half hour I spent with Michelle each day. We talked about my writing struggles, and she mentioned that one strategy that really helped her get her writing done was her accountability group. I started an accountability group in the Fall of 2016 with three fellow faculty members, two assistant professors and another associate professor like myself. We are in three different departments in three different colleges at Ohio State. We meet for one hour, strict, every week (one member is a “timekeeper”). This group has helped me become more productive, and has given me peer mentoring and support through some of the most trying times of my career. I cannot recommend forming your own accountability group enough.

At the first meeting of the semester, we discuss some overarching goals we have for the semester and set goals for the next week. Then, each week, we meet and discuss whether we met our goals or not. One member is a “secretary”, and they will remind you what your goals were. If you met your goal, you get a gold star (one member is a “goalkeeper”). If you almost met it, you get a silver star. If you do not meet your goal, you get a blue star. After three blues, we might have an intervention and brainstorm ways to get back on track, or provide social support, or encourage you to be gentle with yourself because you are going through a lot and you have unrealistic expectations, whatever seems right for the moment. One of my fellow accountability group members mentioned that she met a colleague who has her own accountability group at a conference. Their group throws in $5 every time they do not meet their goal, and then they use the money to share a meal at the end of the semester. I think this is a great idea! My group might try this next year. I find that I really want to get a gold star, and I try hard to meet my goals. Thus, I prioritize those things that I set goals for, and I would say that most weeks, I get silver or gold. What I love about the group is that my accountability group creates something to bug me to get my most important work done. My students will email me, journal editors will email me for reviews, but NIH doesn’t email me to find out when I am submitting my grant. My accountability group will ask me though, and keep me answerable to my goals.

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Active Learning Activity: The Motherhood Penalty, at Work and Home

Please find this post at: https://clairekampdush.com/2018/04/13/motherhood-penalty/

Kermit The Frog Drinking Tea - men are seen as harder workers when they have kids but mothers are "less into the work" but thats none of my business

A student meme from Autumn 2017.

 

My absolutely favorite assignment every semester is the “family science meme” assignment. I have them make a meme related to our class, and write a short paragraph explaining it. This assignment really helps me understand what stood out to them during the semester, plus the memes are really funny. I noticed last semester that more than half of the memes were about microaggressions! I do a class every semester on microaggressions – what they are and how they affect families. I use these videos from MTV. My students find these videos so compelling, they often end up being one of the most memorable activities of the semester.

I wanted to create an assignment/learning experiences that would be as memorable and profound for a topic I am passionate about – the Motherhood Penalty. I worked with Michael Garrett from my college’s Ed Tech team to create a series of videos in which women (all friends of mine) tell their experience of the motherhood penalty. The students then complete an assignment in which they read an article and watch a video about the motherhood penalty, and watch the scenarios (linked below). Next they describe how they would have handled each scenario and how, collectively, the scenarios illustrate the penalty.

Next, in class, or in an online discussion forum, they watch the resolution videos, where the women describe how they handled it and how it made them feel, if they would handle it differently now, and offer some advice. I follow this with a lecture or discussion of this cartoon which illustrates the mental load that mother’s take on at home, and some of my research on the division of labor at the transition to parenthood (Dads are often having fun while moms work around the house and When the baby comes, working couples no longer share housework equally). We then discuss the motherhood penalty at home. At the end of class, we bring it all together.

My students have just completed these activities, and the student feedback was amazing. Note in the first class period/discussion of this module, we talked about the gender pay gap with these videos, so you will some mention of the pay gap.

“One thing that really surprised me in this module were all of the microaggressions and the penalties that mothers face in the work force. I always knew that it was difficult for mothers to keep a career and mothers often make significantly less money than single women and fathers. I also thought the one fact was interesting: “The pay gap between childless women and mothers is greater than the pay gap between men and women.” This just really solidified how prevalent the problem is to me. I think something that is also troubling is I’m not sure how we can fix it. There is no law-breaking, it is all just stereotypes and stigma and that is hard to rid of. I guess we just have to raise awareness first and educate women on their rights and what to do if they experience this. I am glad we had this module so I, personally, can be more prepared for my future.”

“Overall, the materials from this week really opened my eyes up to some important arguments, and sort of angered me. Why aren’t people talking about this? Why isn’t anything being done about this? How can people just sit back and let this happen? I wish I had answers.” Continue reading

Dual-earner couples share the housework equally – until the first baby comes

Please find this post at: https://clairekampdush.com/2015/05/08/transitiontoparenthood/

Claire Kamp Dush, The Ohio State University

As a tenured professor and mother of four young sons, I am constantly asked, “How do you do it?” What people mean is: “How can you have a full-time job and still manage child care and housework?”

I usually respond, “High-quality husband and high-quality child care, in that order.” From the outset, my husband, a full-time, clinical pharmacist, has been a committed partner in caring for our house and raising our children.

But I’ve learned that, with our equal division of housework and child care, he’s an outlier. There may be some like him, but our research group at The Ohio State University recently discovered that such husbands in dual-earner households are, indeed, rare.

Unequal workloads

In our new study of 182 dual-earner couples who became parents for the first time, we found that fathers generally did less work around the home after their baby was born, and also became less involved in childcare than mothers. This was surprising given that both parents worked at their jobs about the same amount of hours.

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How to Succeed in Graduate School While Really Trying

I am really trying! photo credit: dkjd via photopin cc

I am really trying! photo credit: dkjd via photopin cc

Please find this post at: https://clairekampdush.com/2014/10/23/how-to-succeed-in-graduate-school-while-really-trying/

We are midway through the autumn semester, and I have been reflecting on my graduate proseminar course, which is essentially an introduction to graduate school. Some programs have these types of classes, and others do not. So, in this post I give you links to articles I assign and a few tips I give to our first-year graduate students. The articles and tips are designed to tell students those things which faculty generally assume students know, as well as give them suggestions on how to succeed in graduate school. What would you add to my list?

How do I take a graduate class? How do I know what classes to take?

Claire’s Tips for registering for courses:

  • Talk with your advisor. Talk with your advisor about which courses you should take each semester. They may have specific courses they want you to take, or they may know about a specific seminar being offered that would teach you a specialized skill or knowledge set.
  • Email the professor. You may not be able to tell from the title of a course what the course topic will be. If you see a faculty member is teaching a seminar, email them for a course description and/or syllabus. Even if the syllabus is not ready, they will be able to share with you the topic for the seminar. Then, you can decide whether or not to take the seminar.
  • Take seminars when they are offered. Faculty often rarely have the opportunity to teach graduate seminars. Thus, if you are interested in a seminar in a specific topic, such as attachment, it may not be offered again for two or more years. Thus, it is smarter to take the seminar when it is offered and delay a required course, because you may not have the opportunity to take the seminar the following year.
  • Make it count. Choose your electives wisely. For example, try to take electives related to your research interests. You may be able to write a paper for these courses that are related to your research interests and will thus lead you closer to a publication or help you prepare for candidacy. Further, if you are planning to do a minor or specialization, you should look for electives that will count towards the requirements for the specialization.
  • Explore other departments. HDFS is interdisciplinary, and our students often take coursework outside of the department. If you cannot find an elective you are interested in taking in the HDFS course offerings, you might explore electives in Psychology, Sociology, Economics, or Communication.
  • Register for independent studies and thesis credits. Do not forget to register for independent study and thesis credits! By adding these credits to your load, you will free up time from coursework to focus on your research.
  • Make sure you take the minimum number of credits needed to be a full-time student.

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Work and family and “one night a week”

Please find this post at: https://clairekampdush.com/2014/03/06/work-and-family-and-one-night-a-week/

I know there has been a lot written about academia and work-life balance – this recent post in Inside Higher Ed tries to get at why academics work so much. In general, the meme about academics working constantly doesn’t really resonate with me [I should also mention that the meme about professors never working also does not resonate with me]. College professor has been ranked as one of the best jobs in America and the least stressful, though both of these rankings have been debated. In general, I have found it possible to have work-life balance as an academic. Part of my strategy has been to try to make my time at work as productive as possible, so my time at home can be as fun and relaxing as possible.

So, my next post in my “how do I do it” series is my strategy of “one night a week”. While on the tenure track, I often found that it was difficult to find time to focus on my research and writing during the day when I was meeting with students, going to meetings, teaching, etcetera. So, I started staying at work one night a week, and working late, often until 10 or 11.  I would shut my door, order in some food, and work on my research and writing for several hours. This really worked for me, and I got a lot done. I tried not to let teaching or service creep into this time, and I would just work on analyses, coding, and writing. I should also mention that there were very few distractions after 5! Note it doesn’t always have to be at night – I have a friend who worked every Saturday morning on the tenure track.

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