sciencewoman | March 14, 2008A few weeks ago I challenged the readers of this blog to join me in reading Paula Caplan's "Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Woman's Guide to Surviving in the Academic World." This weekend we're set to discuss the book - and we'll see where the conversation goes from there.
If you've read the book (and you have a blog), I'd encourage you to post your thoughts on your blog and then put a link in the comments here. I'll make this the first of three posts where I'll pull out what I think are highlights of the book and try to add my own two cents.
Below the fold, you'll find my thoughts on "The…
skookumchick | March 13, 2008On Monday, I posted two parts to my ethnic story as a white person in the US, and they prompted a variety of comments. Rather than respond in the comments, I thought I'd write another post.
First, I want to thank the people who took up the challenge to write their own stories. DH, grad student, Eric Lund added their stories to the comments, Academic wrote about hers on her blog, as did Ginger Peach, and Makita. Sciencebloggers took up talking about race/ethnicity/diversity and science too including ScienceWoman, razib, Janet, Greg, DrugMonkey, and Maria, and anyone else I missed. If you'…
skookumchick | March 11, 2008Thanks to those of you who posted on your ethnic stories. I'm thinking about replies, but need some time to do so.
In the meantime, I've started a couple of online communities for people doing engineering education research - if this sounds like you, check out:
a Facebook group on engineering education research (although I'm not offering to be everyone's FB friend ;-) )
a blog on Engineering Education through Wordpress. If you have the engr.ed research chops, and are interested in writing for this blog, do let us know!
Have other opportunities that readers might be interested in?…
skookumchick | March 10, 2008In an attempt to do my part to displace whiteness from "normal" in terms of thinking about diversity and science, I'm telling my ethnic story. This is part II; part I is here.
More below the fold...
The story of my mom's side of the family is quite different from my dad's. My mom's parents both grew up in the North of England, with my grandmother's family being coalminers. My grandmother went to school until the equivalent of 8th grade, and then she came home and helped look after her 9 siblings. I'm not sure where my grandparents met, or how they came to live in London. That's where…
skookumchick | March 10, 2008Some events combined last week to make me feel like ScienceBlogs needs to have a serious discussion about race and science. Here's a place to start - how do white people tell their own racial or ethnic stories?
More below the fold...
So last week, Monday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon, I was at my university's Multicultural Forum. While it is required for some of us to go, and while it looked like a lot of the material was going to be familiar to me already, I decided to use the 2.5 days as a time to gauge this new city I'm living in - as staff, faculty and alums attend this forum, I…
sciencewoman | March 10, 2008I always feel acutely ignorant when I begin to talk about racial prejudice, diversity or discrimination. I grew up in a blindingly white hometown. In elementary school, my best friend was Indian - but she was part of one of two Indian families in town - both there because a parent was on the university faculty. I'm pretty sure that the first time I ever saw a person of African descent, it was the child of another faculty member. I didn't hear much explicitly racist talk from friends or family, but minorities were so rare that maybe it just didn't come up as a topic of conversation.
My…
sciencewoman | March 9, 2008What do you do if you are the mother of two young children, have an academic spouse, and have just been denied tenure because of what appears to be upper-level university politics?
It sounds like some sick joke, right?
Only it's not. It's the situation that MommyProf finds herself in this weekend. Give her some sympathy and outrage.
skookumchick | March 9, 2008Last week was a bear with 2.5 days at my university's Multicultural Forum, a day of meetings, and meeting with the geothermal people on Friday, finally making it back home (the other home) about 5:00 pm Friday afternoon.
However, now I'm on spring break! So while my blogging has been light over the last week, and ScienceWoman has been more prolific because of her break, things are likely to change this week.
The nice thing is that my husband and I have different spring breaks, with his the week after this one. So we can be in the same place for two whole weeks! And boy, do I have a list of…
sciencewoman | March 7, 2008When Alice and I teamed up last month, we realized that we needed a new name - one that was inclusive of both of our identities and reflects where we want this blog to go. Today, we're proud to unveil that new name and a new banner to go along with it.
From here on out, this blog is...
Sciencewomen
A scientist and an engineer being the change we want to see
Congratulations to Makita for being the first to suggest the name. She'll be receiving a Sb mug as her prize, just as soon as I find her address. And if any of you creative souls want to come up with a better banner for us, we'd love to…
sciencewoman | March 6, 2008I'm so pleased to welcome See Jane Compute to the ScienceBlogs family. Jane was one of the first women in science bloggers I discovered, and I've been a big fan ever since. She's been on the tenure track a couple of years longer than I, so I've really valued hearing her perspective on research, teaching, and dealing with colleagues. She's also got a baby girl, appropriately nymed Baby Jane, who is just a few months younger than Minnow. Welcome, Jane!
sciencewoman | March 6, 2008What a difference a day makes. Yesterday at this time, I was frustrated by my lack of getting things done during my spring break. This afternoon, I'm feeling much better. It's not that I've suddenly gotten a bunch of stuff taken off the plate, it's just that I've resolved to be OK with how this spring break is shaking out.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon in my office at school. When I opened the door of the building, I felt a physical revulsion and had to fight the urge to turn around and leave. It's not that my office is horrible - I just really didn't want to be there. So today I am home…
sciencewoman | March 5, 2008It's Wednesday afternoon of my spring break week, and it's time to take stock of my progress.
If you recall, my goals were threefold:
* I want to make the weeks ahead easier.
* I want to come out of the week feeling like I accomplished something.
* I want to spend some time outside.
What I have been doing?
* Working on taxes (almost done)
* Grading papers (half done)
* Course related housekeeping (never ending)
* Taking more neighborhood walks (I know I wanted to get out the neighborhood, but something is better than nothing)
* Getting a physical
* Taking all y'…
sciencewoman | March 5, 2008I'll pick up on a comment thread from the last post, in which I argued that whether women with high earning jobs and high earning partners were "opting out" or being forced out missed the fact that many women with high-earning jobs are financially supporting their families and can't afford to even contemplate "opting out."
Randy asks:
Why don't husbands opt out to help wives? I have seen it done. and again, there is little reason why folks can't survive on one income (in one of those incomes is coming from decent tenure track job)
Off the top of my head, I can come up with several reasons…
sciencewoman | March 4, 2008In the 15 February Science Magazine, Phyllis Moen reviews the book "Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home" by Pamela Stone. Stone examines the phenomenon of women leaving successful to stay home by actually interviewing the women who opt out. As Moen writes:
Social scientists have documented the work and family pressures women experience, as well as the costs to women's careers of scaling back or leaving the workforce. But until now no one has systematically investigated the actual dropouts. Thus all the analyses of the stress experienced by employed women ...tend to…
sciencewoman | March 3, 2008More linky goodness from my saved bloglines. Today's edition brought to you by the letters B, C, and D.
But first a flashback to the A's:
Ask a scientist: What's the deal with plastic baby bottles? at a Natural Scientist.
Jenny's post is timely for me because I recently found out that after trying to avoid bisphenol A in my bottles, I'd accidentally bought one of the few Gerber sippy cups that did contain it. Here's a pretty comprehensive list of BPA free baby products.
And now on to the B's.
Mama delivers a good scolding by Bitch Ph.D.
Bitch offers wonderful insightful and irreverent…
sciencewoman | March 3, 2008Part 1: The Toddler and the Shopping Trips
I remember when Minnow was tiny and I felt awful dragging her along on errands. It didn't seem fair to her and it was just *so much work.* I had to pull her carseat out of the car, set it on the cart (ignoring the warnings), bring a diaper bag along everywhere in case of catastrophe, keep one hand on the carseat at all times (so I'd feel less bad about ignoring the warnings), and anxiously worry about a meltdown in the checkout aisle.
Huh. Maybe time fades memories to rosy, but shopping with an infant hasn't got anything on shopping with a toddler.…
skookumchick | March 2, 2008It is GORGEOUS outside here in West Lafayette. About 60 degrees and sunny! I'm quite losing my head.
Evidence of this is that as many of my doors and windows that I can open are indeed open. I know the weather will turn later in the week, but for now, I can turf out a little winter mustiness. And have acute delusions of gardening.
Because my doors were open, however, I also got to catch a fabulous sight. I heard the noise before I saw them, knew enough to grab my camera, and rushed outside in my socks.
Here's my evidence of spring, and I must confess in advance that I cropped the photo…
skookumchick | March 1, 2008The first anniversary of Scientiae is now posted over at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. Pick up your coffee or tea mug, settle down with your down comforter, and prepare for a good read.
Also, speaking of birthdays, our very own ScienceWoman had a birthday last week. Sorry we missed it, SW, and hope you had a lovely day!
sciencewoman | March 1, 2008I know I've written before about how I reward myself with iTunes purchases (but I can't find the links right now). Well, I am due for some serious spending on iTunes, as I recently had a paper accepted and recently celebrated a birthday. But here's the problem, I think I'm in a musical rut, and I don't know what to purchase. So I need your help, oh Internets.
Here's what I've purchased most recently (all Pandora finds, but my Pandora is in a rut too.):
Chantal Kreviazuk
Alice Peacock
Tara McLean
Beth Orton
Deb Talan
Leslie Tucker
Carla Werner
October Project
Here are some of my…
skookumchick | February 28, 2008I just got home from work about half an hour ago. It's been another long day, although it really started at about 10 am in a coffee shop even if it ended at 9 pm in my office. Anyway. I came home after an hour and a half of talking with a colleague about our respective experiences in our department. She gave me a lift home, and I confess I was pretty worn out by the whole day, including our conversation.
But then an amazing thing happened, and I want to tell you about it.
I made up my little dinner (leftover spaghetti with feta and artichokes, and sauteed brussels sprouts with pine nuts,…