Faculty Work-Life Integration and Management
ADVANCE-affiliated research on how work-life conflict is experienced differently by faculty members of different ranks, identities, and appointment types, and also lists the strategies units can use to enhance work-life integration
Authors: Culpepper, D.
Dual-career academic couples, or faculty members who are married or partnered to other faculty members, make up a critical mass of the professoriate in the United States. Women faculty members are more likely to be in these kinds of relationships. Thus, many institutions have implemented dual-career support policies to increase the number of women in the academy. Though a few studies have examined the rates at which these policies are used, less research examines the way using (or not using) said policies can impact each partner’s ability to advance toward their professional goals.
Authors: Culpepper, D., & Kilmer, S.
Researchers, agencies, associations, and faculty members have almost unanimously agreed that without intervention, the COVID-19 pandemic will have severe impacts on the advancement of faculty from historically minoritized groups, including women and racially minoritized faculty members. While recommendations abound, less empirical work has focused on how U.S. higher education institutions have responded to the pandemic.
Authors: Culpepper, D., Lennartz, C., O’Meara, K., & Kuvaeva, A.
Faculty members with families face well-documented challenges in managing the demands of work and life. However, we know less about the experiences of single faculty members. Using agency as a theoretical framework, we assessed whether faculty members have different experiences in enacting agency in work-life balance based on their partner status, gender, and rank. We found single faculty members, particularly single, women associate professors, felt less agency in their ability to balance work and life than their partnered peers.
Authors: Culpepper, D. K., & Blake, D. J.
The COVID-19 pandemic has refocused higher education on issues of work-life conflict among faculty members with children. This study draws from interviews with 13 heterosexual couples (26 participants) who were employed as faculty members and who cared for at least one child during the pandemic. Using the theory of perceived organizational support, we considered how institutional actions shaped the extent to which academic couples who parent felt supported in managing pandemic-related work-life conflict.