Tips on how women faculty pursue life balance.(MOVEABLE TYPE)

One day while Dr. Maike Ingrid Philipsen was grading papers, her then-six-year-old son-who knew not to interrupt--wrote her a memo. The cover page read, "Plees reed this." The memo; "Please lissen to me."

She found balance only after her divorce, when her ex took the children half of the time. When other women ask how she'd made it as a successful academic with children, her first response is surprise: Can't you see that I didn't?

Philipsen is professor in the social foundations of education at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Challenges of the Faculty Career for Women: Success & Sacrifice with Timothy Bostic (Jossey-Bass 2008).

This qualitative study stands out in the work-life literature in two ways. First, in addition to recommending policy changes, it offers tips from women's lives on how to get by in the meantime.

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Second, it isn't all mommies on the tenure track. She thinks work-life balance can be an issue for faculty women of any lifestyle or family situation, at any stage of their careers. It's an issue for men too, especially in dual-career marriages.

She divided her 46 interviews among early-, mid-and late-career women at five different schools, from flagship state universities to community colleges. Their academic fields vary. They range from their 20s to their 70s; 29 are white, nine African American and eight immigrants. They're single, married, divorced, lesbian--with or without kids.