Public policy students at Georgia Tech study a combination of politics, economics, sociology, statistics, and research methods to prepare for a future as problem-solvers in the public and private sectors.
At work, are you afraid colleagues might find out you’re not as capable as they may think? Do you feel like any praise you receive for success is because people are just trying to be nice, not because you actually deserve it? Rather than celebrating increased responsibilities or promotions, do they instead cause anxiety because – in your mind – now you’ll have to work even harder to keep them from learning the truth about your abilities?
Here’s a secret – a lot of people feel that way. In fact, roughly 70 percent of us do at some point in our lives. While change can always cause feelings of doubt, for some people the feelings of inadequacy run so deep that no amount of success or achievement can sway them. And there is a term for it – imposter syndrome.
Health psychologist Shilagh Mirgain explains that imposter syndrome can be debilitating if left untreated. “In addition to causing stress, anxiety and depression, it can impact lives in other ways. Individuals with imposter syndrome may avoid pursuing new job opportunities out of fear. Feelings of shame may make it difficult to speak up for themselves or advocate for what they believe is right.”
Read more at
https://www.uwhealth.org/health-wellness/tips-to-overcome-imposter-syndrome/52943 |
| Henrietta Leavitt, from item 3 |
1. Kick-off Post for Two-Body Problem Series
2. New Video Interview Series from the Europlanet Early Career and Diversity Committees
3. How Henrietta Swan Leavitt Helped Build a Yardstick to Measure the Universe
4. The Scientist Who First Showed Us The Double Helix: A Personal Look At Rosalind Franklin
5. Supporting Parents and Caregivers in Science, Engineering, and Medicine
6. The Long Road to Getting, and Keeping, More Women in Science
7. Navigating the 'Old Boys' Club' of Science, With a Friend
8. Why I'm not applying for promotion
10. 5 Ways to Welcome Women to Computer Science
11. The mental health of PhD researchers demands urgent attention
12. Are you guilty of equity offset?
14. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
15. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
The two-body problem refers to the complications of dual-working partners finding jobs in the same location. This is a special issue for academics for several reasons, principally 1) academics are more likely to be partnered with other academics and 2) jobs in academia are scarce and finding two in the same location is difficult. For women, especially those partnered with men, this becomes even more precarious as academics who identify as women are far more likely to have a partner in the same field or within academia. They are also more likely to “follow” their partner, resulting in compromising their career path for the ability to live with their partner and family.
The CSWA has recognized the impact of the two-body problem on careers for women in astronomy, and frequently posted to this blog. However, our last posts about this issue were in 2014, and we believe it is time to kick-off a new series, bringing in personal stories, insights from the hiring standpoint, and looking for solutions. If you would like to contribute a post, email the blog editors at wia-blog AT lists.aas.org.
In this kick-off post, we are sharing an interview with Timothy D. Swindle, Department Head and Director of the Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, who shared his insight into how departments and schools can address the problem. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Why is your department/school taking steps to address the two-body problem?Almost half the people that we want to hire, male or female, have a partner who is also in academia. If we want to successfully recruit them, we probably have to help them solve that problem. If their partner is an M.D. or a lawyer or a schoolteacher, it's not an issue that we can address as a university, although we will try to provide contacts in the community.
What negotiated resources, tangible benefits, or other offers have departments implemented that have been effective? What has not worked?Offering a tenure-track faculty line, complete with a start-up package that is large enough to allow for success, is usually effective. If the partner is not already in a tenure-track position, a staff position with a few years of security may be effective.
It is often not effective when the offer for the partner is (or appears to be) a step down in rank, e.g., from a tenured position to tenure-track or lecturer, or from tenure-track to staff.
Is it effective when departments make the offer or does the school/institution need to be on board?The institution needs to be on board to allow the departments to make effective offers. In my institution, we have usually been successful when the partner was also in the sciences. The science departments typically have 20 or more faculty, and the department heads all recognize that there is a good chance that we will be the one shopping a partner in the future. Additionally, the dean has not held partner hires against us for future hiring plans, even if the partner doesn't align perfectly with our strategic needs. On the other hand, we have lost hires when dealing with departments in other colleges, especially smaller departments. Even if they liked the partner for a position, their dean would give no assurances for planned future hires.
Every situation is different. It works best when both partners are very strong so that the department hiring the second partner can make a strong case. But we have also had some cases where one department (or college) would cover the startup or the first few years of the partner's salary, perhaps in return for some indirect cost return. The negotiations can become involved. But the bottom line is that it's essential that the university administration, at the level of dean and above, be supportive.
What improvements have you seen in the hiring process for faculty with partners?There is a growing recognition that a substantial fraction of the people a university wants to hire as faculty will have a two-body problem. Our department has been in an era of hiring, partly due to growth, partly to retirements, and our success rate for scientists with academia-minded partners, though not quite as good as for those who are single or have spouses in other fields, is not far off. Being better at solving the two-body problem does give an institution an advantage, given the number of talented couples on the job market.
Another improvement in the last decade or so has been the increased effectiveness of parental leave policies, allowing parents to take more time with newborns without it counting against the tenure clock. I have seen this both at our institution and at others. I know that is widespread, but a couple thinking of having children should check on that.
Anything else you'd like to add?One of the very difficult things about this is that, unless it is a targeted hire of a couple in the same area, there is usually one partner who is the second body. Will that person be accepted as a scientist in their own right? My suspicion is that it is easier in a larger department and in a department with a more substantial history of dealing with the issue. I know of cases where that has been a problem, and that can be hard on an individual and on a relationship. For a couple where one gets a job offer, it's worth asking if there are other couples or spousal hires in the department, and if so, finding out their perception.
Tim Swindle is a Professor of Planetary Sciences and Geosciences at the University of Arizona, where he is the Head of the Department of Planetary Sciences and Director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He has negotiated the hiring of 21 faculty members in the last decade.
Participants at the 7th Solvay Physics Conference in Brussels, Belgium, in 1933 (from item # 4; Credit: Getty Images)1. Cross-post: Increasing gender diversity in the STEM research workforce
2. Math Looks The Same In The Brains Of Boys And Girls, Study Finds
3. Why they stay: These factors keep women in STEM careers
4. Celebrating Two Women In Science - Marie Curie And Lise Meitner
5. It’s tough being small in a big-suit world. We still spacewalked.
6. ‘Equity in Design’ Panel Discussion
8. What the US can learn from women in the Soviet workforce
10. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWOMEN newsletter
Women experience substantial, gender-specific barriers that can impede their advancement in research careers...We outline here specific, potentially high-impact policy changes that build upon existing mechanisms for research funding and governance and that can be rapidly implemented to counteract barriers facing women in science. These approaches must be coupled to vigorous and continuous outcomes-based monitoring, so that the most successful strategies can be disseminated and widely implemented. Though our professional focus is primarily academic biomedical research in U.S. institutions, we suggest that some of the approaches that we discuss may be broadly useful across STEM disciplines and outside of academia as well.
Read more at:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6466/692The CSWA is currently working on their own set of recommendations to the AAS for a more inclusive astronomy in the form of a Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (BAAS) article. Those recommendations will be presented at AAS by Rachel Wexler, a senior at Georgia Tech who is working with the CSWA on this project.
1. Physics and Astronomy STEM Equality Achievement (SEA) Change Department Awards
2. National Academies Issue Recommendations on Mentoring to Improve Diversity & Inclusion
3. Dual-Anonymous Peer Review for Astrophysics General Observer / General Investigator Programs
4. A sociological study of gender and astronomy in Spain
6. Being a Working Parent is Complicated — Supporting Working Families Shouldn’t Be
7. Careers and controversy before the First World War
8. The women who cracked science’s glass ceiling
10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
Over the last two years, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has developed the STEM Equity Achievement (SEA) Change Project which supports systemic, structural institutional transformation around diversity and inclusion in colleges and universities. It does so by encouraging, assisting and recognizing academic institutions that commit to and engage in the difficult work of removing structural barriers to success for women, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, people with disabilities, and others who are marginalized in STEM fields. In the SEA Change process, inclusion, and its valuable impacts, are measured by the experiences of students and faculty, as well as by data. The SEA Change Principles can be found here: https://seachange.aaas.org/principles/. Three universities were the first recipients of SEA Change bronze awards in February 2019: Boston University, University of California, Davis, and University of Massachusetts Lowell.
1. Cross-post: Every woman has an 'I Don't' list. And it's about time we shared them.
2. 6 Steps Everyone Can Take To Become An Ally In White, Male-Dominated Workplaces
3. Becoming a parent in graduate school shaped my approach to work–life balance
4. Preventing Harassment in Science: Building a Community of Practice Towards Meaningful Change
5. Nancy Grace Roman and the Dawn of Space Astronomy
6. Women are regularly read and cited less in academia, but not for lack of research, UCI study shows
7. An ongoing conversation on diversity in science
8. November National Geographic Magazine
9. Caroline Herschel Prize Lecture
10. Staying Power: Women in Science on What It Takes to Succeed
11. The Science Of Storytelling: Inspiring The Next Generation Of Female STEM Leaders
12. AstroAmbassadors: Need help finding more applicants for Jan 2020 Ambassadors workshop
14. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
15. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
16. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter
Image Credit: SXS, the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project 