Evolutionary Aspects of Gender and Sexuality.

Joan Roughgarden, Professor Emerita, Biological Sciences and Geophysics, Stanford University.  Evolutionary Aspects of Gender and Sexuality.  Dr. Roughgarden challenged Darwin's theory of sexual selection with a discussion of “social selection" in which gender roles and sexuality are adaptations which facilitate cooperation in complex societies.  This lecture was a joint presentation of the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions and Adaptive Peaks lecture series and GSA’s Shifting Paradigms annual lecture.

Negotiation--advice and role-playing exercises

Roseanne Ecker, Director of Career Services at SU.    If you've been offered a job, should I ask for more salary than they offer?  Yes!  Isn't that rude?  Well, you should remember that EVERY raise and bonus that you receive will be calculated as a percentage of your salary.  If you start at less than you could, the cumulative loss over your career there--adds up mighty quick.  And if there happens to be a freeze on raises (as happened to one of the audience members), you will be stuck at that too low rate.  What if they can't provide more?  This is always a possibility, but if you don't ask, you won't ever know.  Also consider if there are other things that can help you do what it is that you are being hired to do.  Training?  Equipment?  Lab space?  Assistants?  Computers and software?  If they cannot provide you with your own, will you have adequate access to existing lab spaces, vehicles, and help to carry out experiments or teach the bazillion lab sections you are expected to offer?  It may be that you don't want more money, but for personal reasons (commuting costs a fortune, the need for eldercare is on the rise) you need flexibility in your schedule (set own hours, or the ability to work from home a few days a week...if you provide a convincing argument why this can help them meet their goals (rather than just reduce your commuting costs--although reducing gas usage is a great societal goal, it many not  be in their business plan at this point in time), you are more likely to be in a position to receive these amenities.  And when it works, they will have gained your expertise and loyalty, eliminating their need to conduct another search, train a replacement, and the time costs of bringing said person up to speed--all costly propositions (especially if they continue to botch their efforts to set up employees to succeed, and have to do it all over again).

Climate change: can forests keep pace

Dr.  Lindsey Rustad, Hubbard Brook Team Leader & Research Ecologist, Center for Research on Ecosystem Change, US Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Durham, NH and Associate Research Professor, Department of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Maine.  Climate Change:  Can Northern Forests Keep Pace?  Sponsored by the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management and the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology.  Dr. Rustad reviewed climatological data associated with climate change, survey results about perceptions of climate change, and what the northern forests and the species that use it for habit might look like in the future.  A joint presentation of the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions and the Cross-disciplinary Seminar in Hydrological and Biogeochemical Processes. 

Assertion and Dealing with Difficult People

Catherine Gerard, Sally Rock-Blake, Vadym Pyrozhenko of the Conflict Management Center described the core concepts of assertion in order to more effectively communicate with others while maintaining and defending your rights, demonstrated how reflective listening (http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/uploadedFiles/parcc/cmc/Reflective%20Listening%20NK.pdf) and assertion can be work together to better manage conflict when dealing with difficult people (http://www.scribd.com/doc/18024/Dealing-with-Difficult-Peopleprimarily by preventing you from also becoming difficult.). Participants had the opportunity to practice these techniques.  Their overview is posted at http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/uploadedFiles/parcc/cmc/Managing%20Agreement-Assertion%20Skills%20NK.pdf.  Sponsored by the Conflict Management Center, PARCC, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

HR Brown Bag Presentation: Retirement Planning for Women

 

Women tend to live longer than men, have more gaps in employment for child or elder care, and take lower paying positions to trail a spouse.  Helen Chambers and Stephen Donella, Jr., CFP, from ING introduced questions women should consider in retirement planning, and explained the optional savings programs available to ESF employees.   Sponsored by the Office of Human Resources. 

Protecting Human Subjects, Communities, and Cultural Groups in Environmental Research

Dr. Dianne Quigley, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Research, Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University

Dr. Lister Speaks on Landscape Ecology and Urbanism

As part of the course requirements of FOR 797 Women in Environmental Careers, students share responsibility for reporting on the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series.  The following was prepared by Carrie Rose Levine (MS FNRM 2011) and Susan Smith (ES 2013).
            Dr. Nina-Marie Lister, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional  Planning at Ryerson University in Toronto and Visiting Professor at the  Harvard University Graduate School of Design, presented her research and
selected design projects in  “(Re)Claiming Ground: Landscape, Ecology and Urbanism” at SUNY-ESF on February 8, 2011 as part of the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series. The talk was jointly sponsored
by the ESF Women’s Caucus, the Randolph G. Pack Environmental Institute, and the Department of Landscape Architecture. The lecture was very well attended, and the audience represented students and faculty from a variety
of ESF departments as well as a good turnout from the Syracuse University School of Architecture due to the cross-disciplinary nature of Dr. Lister’s research.
            Dr. Lister has a background in formal ecology, landscape architecture, and urban planning. This multi-disciplinary training has informed her research on the development and use of reclaimed urban spaces. The lecture addressed the key principles of ecological urbanism, the role that these principles have played in recent theory and practice of urban
design, and the direction in which these principles will continue to evolve in the future.
            In Dr. Lister’s lecture, she expanded on the basic scientific definition of ecology and demonstrated how the concept of ecology can be applied to highly modified and constructed systems such as dense urban areas. Essentially, Dr. Lister argued, the human environment and its relationship to nature can be distilled to the interplay between ecology and design. The pervasiveness of human intervention in the landscape has altered our paradigm of ecology. At the same time, our understanding of ecology has informed design and planning decisions in recent years to the point where both ecology and design are essential driving forces in the way that we experience the urban environment.
            The history of this movement toward and ecological understanding of urban landscape and design was discussed, which provided a solid theoretical foundation for Dr. Lister’s own work. She then showed examples of the kind of work that her firm plandform has done in the Toronto area in conjunction with her students at Ryerson University. This work included examples of restoration design within a highly modified urban landscape. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of her talk came at the very end, when she discussed future directions for the discipline, citing a recent example of a land bridge for migrating animals across a busy highway in the western US that combines principles of ecology, modern design, and human influence on the natural landscape.
            Dr. Lister is a Registered Professional Planner (MCIP, RPP), an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson Univeristy, and the founding principal of the firm plandform, a creative studio that which explores the relationship between ecology, landscape, and urbanism. She is the author of several papers on ecology and urban design and is co-editor of the book The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and
Managing for Sustainability (Columbia University Press, 2008).

Workshop: Writing for Scientific Publication--Dr. Ruth Yanai

Publishing is an important part of the research process, but writing papers is not what attracted most of us to our respective fields.  Learning to write papers with minimal effort and maximum impact will help you for the rest of your career. Participants received general  advice on organizing writing efforts and specific examples of the steps to go through in preparing each section of your paper, and left the workshop with working drafts of their abstracts. Dr. Yanai has lots of useful tips http://www.esf.edu/for/yanai/publishing/default.htm  Cosponsored by WISE, GSA, and ESF Women's Caucus. 

Biological diversity and Time

Dr. Anne Magurran, Professor, Gatty Marine Laboratory, University of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, discussed Biological diversity and Time, in a joint presentation of the Adaptive Peaks and Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series. Dr. Magurran illustrated that species assemblages have been relatively and broadly constant over time, but that an advantage to one species alters the environment to effect the presence of others in that environment.  She also discussed the implications of such temporal turnovers.

Sponsored by the Departments of Forest and Environmental Biology, Forest and Natural Resources Management, and the ESF Women's Caucus. 

Balancing Work and Life: Dual-Career Couples.

How, and when, are you supposed to do everything? Does it get any easier?  At what cost?  Couples representing different institutions, academic rank, and family status discussed the challenges and strategies of balancing dual careers with everything else important to them.   Sponsored by the ESF Women's Caucus and the Women in Science and Engineering Future Professoriate Program. 

Panelists:  empty nesters Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, Vice President for Research, SU, and Dr. Mark Glauser, Associate Dean for Research and Doctoral Programs and Associate Director for Research, SU; Dr. Eleanor Maine and Dr. Doug Frank, both Professors of Biology at SU and the parents of middle schoolers; and Assistant Professors of Chemistry, Dr. Kelley Donaghy, ESF, and Dr. DJ Robinson, Ithaca College, the parents of 3 elementary schoolers.  The panel was facilitated by Dr. Suzanne Baldwin, Professor in SU’s Earth Science department.  Dr. Baldwin’s husband, Paul Fitzgerald, is in the same department; he was unable to participate today due to a prior  commitment at the Geology Society meeting. 

Who commutes?  Have tried to live where the one with the strictest schedule has shortest commute, although this has meant up to a 3 hour commute for the other.  As academics, they do have some flexibility in class scheduling and where work occurs—try to alternate days that they HAVE to be on campus.  Two of the panelists were formerly in industry and they had strictly set schedules, so living close to job was very helpful; DJ noted unlike now when he regularly brings work home, he left work at work.  Gina pointed out that much of your personal control over your schedule and work load are much more restricted and industry often requires frequent travel on schedules made by the company.  In academia, they juggle deadlines, rather than their supervisors.  In contrast, work associated with academia can often be performed in a variety of settings, for example Mark would bring a laptop to daughter’s skating practice.

How did you negotiate the job for your partner?  Eleanor was already faculty at SU when Doug came on soft-money.  When they started their family, Eleanor went on 50% leave and Doug was hired to fill the 50% position.  The only thing that was really half-time was their teaching loads—which considerably lightened their stress level.  They were lucky that the base salary was sufficient to live on. In addition, Eleanor was well respected and they had the chair’s and dean’s support.  Both jobs eventually reverted to full time.

They try to schedule sabbaticals together; Suzanne took a ‘leave’ once to accompany husband on his, and independently studied geology of region in that locale.  This turned out to be a great work opportunity for both of them.

As a couple, need to define the boundaries, career goals, and find a place that works with you.  Compromise is critical and couples may have to alternate whose career or options to follow at each juncture.  From audience:  compromise is important to all couples.  You also must not resent sacrifices that you’ve made for your partner, or take for granted those made for you.  Give each other space.  Communication is also key.

All of the panelists happen to be in same general field as partner—does that help?  Baldwin and husband made conscious decision to work together; otherwise they wouldn’t ever see one another (their work was previously on different continents).  It was acknowledged that you have to be conscious of the dynamics among your peers and the politics that result from a couple working in the same department.  You may be seen as a ‘voting block’ at faculty meetings, for example.  Or feel that you are a co-between for your partner.  Can you tell spouse that….? (They’ll try, but you know, they do have other things to remember, too!)  For the Glauser’s, at their original institution where Mark worked and Gina pursued her doctorate and then also was hired, there was an early perception that she got her degree, positions and perks because of her husband.  Conversely, when he later followed her to SU, no one cared. 

Day to day workaholics vs family?

1. Houses not as clean as they could be (all concur) and you hire help as much as possible.
2. Stay organized, central domestic calendar and superimpose work calendars several weeks out. 
3. Daycare, before and after school programs at schools or private (they like the Jewish Community Center and Rothschild Early Childhood Center at Temple Adath Yeshrun—note:   both facilities welcome non-Jewish participants), and reliable babysitters. Always have a back up plan.
4. Dedicated family time. For one family, it’s Sundays, for another, daily dinners together.  For all, between dinner and kids bedtimes, and they write later.
5. Make your daily life circumstances work for you.  For example the Glausers installed an antennae to allow internet access at their wilderness cabin so that Gina could be apprised of emergent problems at the office—this gives her the peace of mind she needs to enjoy time at the cabin.  Set aside space at home that you can work well in.
6. Flexibility.  Work at home?  May be easier at times to keep home separate, but for these families, working at home has less interruptions.  Much of their writing gets done 9pm-3am.
7.  Toys in their offices for when kids do come in with them.

Give up job for a few years?  Bio—would be difficult.  Kelley intended to take a year off after youngest was born, but so many good job announcements came out that she applied and interviewed for a number of them.  One of those led her here.

What stage of your career did you have children?  Mark and Gina while she was in grad school.  Eleanor and Doug were older, she already had tenure.  They did encounter the problem that SU did not yet have a parental leave policy in place following adoptions.  Kelly and DJ waited until they thought they were in established positions.   Did they take breaks?  Sort of, but still wrote papers and proposals.  

Slow tenure clock?  Eleanor was already tenured when she went half-time; Doug did not take an extension.  Kelley’s previous institution had a stop clock policy BUT chair and dean had to be on board for this to work as intended, otherwise the reduction in teaching would result in higher expectation for writing.  Also, she notes that a teaching reduction wasn’t really what she needed—it was physically uncomfortable working at the lab bench during the later parts of her pregnancies.

Is your experience typical for non-hard science?  They think so.

Gina volunteered that there are gender differences.  She never displayed family photos for fear of “There she goes again” vs “What a great dad!”  She also never felt that she could say that she had a family obligation, or to say ‘no’ to a work related request to review a paper, etc.  Kelley noted that despite being in an open and responsive department, she feels the same way now.  As a result, both have missed more of their children’s events than their spouses.

They asked of each other:  would you do it differently?  No.  Through every sacrifice, we are a stronger couple and family.

Comments compiled by Heather Engelman, ESF Women’s Caucus and Sharon Alestalo, WISE FPP