Surviving Grad School 101: Balancing Work and Family

Rosemary O'Leary began the discussion with her own background:  her mother started work on a PhD once her youngest child started school.  She also shared her challenge of finding good job opportunities for her and her husband (an economist, also with the Maxwell School) where both of them were wanted, and then raising their daughter (and a child from a previous marriage) with two busy research careers. 

 

What works for them:  They arrange their class schedules on opposite days, so the one not teaching can prepare dinner, chauffer, chaperone, etc., split household duties, and they renegotiate when this ceases to work.

Daughter has been to many meetings and defenses.  Rosemary reserves an hour a day for herself which she spends in the gym (similarly, one of the participants learned to play an instrument); she firmly believes that this helps her be better at everything else, and that its a good model for her daughter.  She doesn't go to all the meetings she would like--sometimes its Larry's turn. Ask for help.  The waiting list for the daycare at her previous institution was 150 families long; they called weekly to check.  She suspects they just got tired of the phone calls and moved her to the top.

 

Specific questions:  How did you survive the time between when your daughter was 10 and 14?  Rosemary shared her remembrance that she had personally loved when her mom had asked her opinion, and the realization that this was true for her own daughter.   Between homework and extracurricular activities and sleep, do kids even do chores anymore?  Time crunched moms often find it more expedient to do it themselves rather than supervising or taking time to teach to do task correctly.  But this ends up a disservice to both.  Rotate responsibilities, and accept that things won't necessarily be done as well for now. When Rosemary was a child,  there were 7 rotating tasks, including "the expediter" who made sure all the other tasks were completed.

 

She asked participants about their particular struggles:  time, staying upbeat, a little time in the gym to keep sane, getting kids through it, too.

 

Two of the participants took the same route as Rosemary's mom, and are now pursuing degrees.  Other successful strategies:  ditch unsupportive spouse (especially if abusive), move into a smaller place with easier upkeep and less opportunities for mooching by adult children. Some solutions don't work for everyone:  Theoretically we could "farm out" cooking and cleaning, but not on most student budgets!  This discussion was facilitated by Rosemary O'Leary, Distinguished Professor of Public Administration; Distinguished Professor and Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership; Co-Director, Program for the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict; and Senior Research Associate in both the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and Center for Environmental Policy and Administration at Syracuse University.  It was co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Association as part of their yearlong series Surviving Grad School 101.

Susan Crow Presents: Creating Resilient Communities: Tools for Regional Land Use Planning in the Face of Hazards in South Carolina

by Lydia Bilodeau, Monica Giermek, and Priscilla Hernandez

Since the early 1990’s, Susan Crow has focused her efforts on applying GIS and other technologies to ecosystem based management programs in order to help communities have a better understanding on the negative implications that comes with industrial development and population growth. She believes that by recognizing these implications and visualizing future alternative, communities can make sustainable decisions. PlaceMatters is a non profit organization that supports tools for community involvement in land use planning situations. Place Matter takes pride in bridging the divide between social and science tools and approaches. This is done by giving recommendations for effective integration of these two approaches, and providing training and outreach programs in order to broaden use of division support tools.

Her current project is titled, “Creating Resilient Communities, Ecosystem Based Management”.  The site for the project is the tri-county region of South Carolina. This region is an area that has been affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita, growth, and changing sea levels, a result of global climate change. Creating Resilient Communities wishes to incorporate holistic planning and adaptive management.  This project will help area residents, businesses, planners, and elected officials make better informed decisions concerning where land should be developed. It also aims to prepare communities to resist damage from natural disasters, conserve natural areas, and assess coast community vulnerability.

Creating resilient communities faces certain challenges due to the tri-counties having fractured governance and planning, no jurisdictional coordination, and no regional database. They hope their efforts will open up several opportunities for the community, such as public and private partnership, regional planning initiatives and hopefully provide a willingness to cooperate among the different stakeholders. This project is planned to run up until 2009. Susan Crown and Place Matters hope that communities will benefit from all their combined efforts.  Expected benefits include flood control, recreation, tourism, food materials, and fish and wildlife preservation.

­Susan Crow is a member of the public service faculty of the Institute of Government and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia. She is currently a fellow for PlaceMatters, a program of theDavid and Lucile Packard Foundation located in Denver.

Patricia Riexinger Speaks About Wetlands at ESF

By: Kacie Gehl, ESF Graduate Student

Ms. Patricia Riexinger, Director of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, presented Freshwater Wetlands: Conservation Policy in New York State Tuesday, April 8, 2008.  Ms. Riexinger’s presentation was sponsored by the Environmental Studies Randolph G. Pack Environmental Institute and the ESF Women’s Caucus, and was the third presentation this spring in ESF’s Women in Environmental and Scientific Seminar Series. 

Ms. Riexinger began by defining herself as a “good bureaucrat”.  She elaborated that she began her career with the DEC doing field work which she one day decided wasn’t actually protecting the habitat of the species she cared for in a direct enough way.  She decided that in order to feel as though she was really making a difference, she would have to get involved with the politics and decision-making processes.  She conveyed that science alone will not manage habitat.  Although she feels DEC is making a big difference, she added the disclaimer that DEC can only do the “legal thing” not always what they feel is the “right thing.”  This idea was further discussed with examples of federal court cases and county- level disagreements.

Ms. Riexinger described wetlands and the painstaking process of mapping wetlands with differing views between agencies on the exact definition of wetland delineation.  She reminded the audience that only wetlands 12.4 acres or larger in size are protected which only protects about 75-80% of wetlands by acreage.  This specification may exclude wetlands that are of smaller acreage, but which are of unusual local importance.  She emphasized that it is still very important to protect smaller wetlands but a compromise had to be made between the political and scientific levels of the argument.

Ms. Riexinger asked the question, “What will climate change mean for managing natural resources in New York State?”  She encouraged the audience to think “big and bold” with their ideas for conservation and management because you have to think big to make change.  One change that the DEC is making currently is to amend their existing freshwater wetland maps to be defined on a watershed basis rather than along political boundaries.  This will stimulate the community to think about freshwater as watershed  systems and will lead to a greater understanding of the science behind the hydrologic processes involved in watershed management.

Ms. Riexinger received her B.S. from Cornell University in Wildlife Biology and her M. S. degree from the University of Albany in Biodiversity Conservation and Policy.  Along with her Director’s position, Ms. Riexinger is also an outdoorsperson who enjoys birding, snorkeling and traveling.  She is on her town Conservation Board and leads a Girl Scout troop.

 

Margaret Shannon Speaks on Making Feminist Theory a Part of Sustainable Forest Management

As part of the course requirements for FOR 797-2, students share the responsibility for reporting on the speakers in the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series for distribution to co-sponsors and the Knothole.  The following was prepared by Kaity Cheng and Laura Sullivan. 

 

Dr. Margaret Shannon, Associate Dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont addressed “The Essential Role of Research for Sustainable Forest Management: Feminist Theory and Practice” on April 4, 2008.  Dr. Shannon’s stated goal for her lecture was to make people think differently about their research. To that end, she encouraged an examination of our ideologies and the use of feminist theory to challenge the validity of key normative ideas.  She then proceeded to examine ideologies central to the field of forestry.

Shannon offered several reasons why feminist theory contributes to research.  She emphasized that women are the appropriate starting point for examining inequality. The role of women reveals structures and systems of power and privilege. She gave examples of societies where women locate or gather forest resources that sustain their communities, but have been excluded from forest management discussions.

Feminist theory emphasizes the lived realities of research participants. Incorporating the lived experience of all stakeholder groups results in more comprehensive research findings, and enhances the social agency of participants. Feminist theory is oriented toward social change; feminist research is conducted for participants, as opposed to about them.

One focus of the discussion was the research ideal, or the practice of high quality research. Shannon shared her conviction that research should involve interrogating knowledge systems. This process of inquiry should reveal structures and systems of power and privilege. Scientists should integrate theories of social power with theories underpinning forestry research.  Furthermore, research as critique should draw the invisible from its shadows and make it known.

Through paintings and words, Shannon discussed sustainable forest management, which she noted is distinct from the concept of sustainable forests.  Sustainable Forest Management is more about developing a sustainable management ideology that, it is assumed, will in turn help sustain forests.  She believes it should be in opposition to ‘single objective’ forest management. Vivid in her descriptions, Dr. Shannon compared treating the forest as if it has a single value to pornography, which treats women as if they had a single value.

The lecture was sponsored by the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management and the ESF Women’s Caucus as C. Eugene Farnsworth Memorial lecturer and part of the  Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Seminar Series.  For information about upcoming lectures in the series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus. 

Shannon is a former SUNY ESF faculty member.  She participated in the development of the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management.  Shannon was a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Freiburg, Germany, in the Forest and Environmental Science Department.  She has also directed the Environmental Law Program at SUNY Buffalo Law School.

Robin Bell's guide to preparing for tenure

Dr. Bell “Step(ped) through hints on how to be strategic; how to build the record you need to be an academic scientist.” The time between post-doc and tenure sets the stage.  If you have a plan, you are likely to do better (measures used:  submit papers and grant applications at a higher rate, be first author more frequently) and be more satisfied.  Productivity is THE measure of how good you are, with # of pubs is the most common metric Be able to say what you have contributed, and have a “home run”—an important discovery or advance.  There is a hierarchy of value associated with scientific work:  Theoretical>experimental>technological breakthroughs. Distinguish yourself from your PhD advisor, but if the relationship is good, keep working together.  Pick projects that can be published and funded.  Collaborate.  Travel to meetings If you can’t present, see about running a workshop there, or at home institution.  Ideal: prestigious PhD program and post-doc, work assignment with opportunities for research, eminent mentor, early publishing, no career interruptions (there are some gendered differences).  Align interests with rewards; make sure what you do counts.  More comprehensive notes.

Dr. Robin Bell: Ice Dynamics of the Antarctic Environment

The students enrolled in FOR 496/797 Environmental Career Strategies for Women share the responsibiltiy for reporting on speakers in the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series for our sponsors as well as for submission to the Knothole.  The following was prepared by Rachel Tucker and Johanna Duffy.  Also note:  a brief summary of Dr. Bell's advice on how to prepare for tenure has been posted at  http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/Potlucks.htm

 

Dr. Robin E. Bell, Doherty Senior Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, presented Antarctic Environment: Sub-glacial Lakes Linked to Ice Dynamics at ESF on Tuesday, March 4, 2008. This presentation was jointly sponsored by Syracuse University's Department of Earth Sciences, the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Program at Syracuse University, and the ESF Women's Caucus.

Dr. Bell discussed the changes in ice dynamics that are being observed in Greenland and the Antarctic environments. She summarized the causes and effects of these changes and also compared and contrasted the ice dynamics of these two environments.

Dr. Bell first focused on what constitutes ice dynamics. Overall, the amount of global sea ice has decreased in the past 5-10 years. This reduction is studied using ice dynamics (i.e., understanding how and why changes occur in the ice sheets). Dr. Bell explained that the melting of floating ice has no impact on sea level, but that the melting of ice on the land surface (ice sheets) can lead to increases in global sea level. The three ice sheets that are the focus of Dr. Bell's research are the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The melting of any one of these ice sheets could result in a drastic rise in sea levels, from a minimum of approximately 19-feet (West Antarctic Ice Sheet) to a maximum of approximately 170-feet (East Antarctic Ice Sheet).

The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased by 0.7 percent a year. This ice sheet is characterized by outlet glaciers (fast flowing ice) located around its margin. It was discovered that moulins (glacial lakes) were conveying surface melt water to the base of the ice sheet, lubricating the base of the sheet, and forcing the margin areas of the glacier to break off into the ocean.

Dr. Bell began to focus her research on whether similar changes were taking place in the polar ice sheets in Antarctica. Her study determined that the ice dynamics observed at the Greenland Ice Sheet were not apparent in the Antarctic glacial region. The lakes of Antarctica are buried under many layers of ice, hence the name sub-glacial lakes. If the lake water levels drop, then so do the elevations of the glacier. Although her exploration team is making great strides in understanding the dynamics of the Antarctic glacial environment, more research is required to firmly grasp the causes and effects taking place in this region of the world. During the upcoming 2007-2008 International Polar Year, Dr. Bell and more than 5,000 other scientists hope to devote their time to polar studies and polar education throughout the world in order to better understand this world-changing topic.

Dr. Bell received her B.A. in Geology from Middlebury College, and her M.S., M. Phil, and Ph.D. in marine geophysics from Columbia University. Aside from her research duties, Dr. Bell is also the Chair of National Academy of the Sciences Polar Research Board and Vice Chair of the International Planning Group for the International Polar Year. She also directs Columbia University's National Science Foundation-sponsored ADVANCE program, aimed at recruiting and retaining women in the sciences.

For more information about the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus.