June 2011 118 th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Vancouver, BC, Canada

1. Institutional Ethnography as a Method to Understand the Career and Parental Leave Experiences of STEM Faculty Members June 2011 118th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Vancouver, BC, Canada Mercado Santiago, M., Pawley, A. L., Hoegh, J., & Banerjee, D. Purdue University

2. Plan • Introduction • Institutional Ethnography Research Methodology • Giddens’ Theory of Structuration • Methods • Demographics • Preliminary Themes • Preliminary Recommendations

3. Introduction* • Women and ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in STEM faculty positions both compared to the population of faculty members within United States and to the general US population. • There is a need to understand how policies structure institutions that result in women and people of color’s underrepresentation in academia. *. Gibbons, M.T. (2010). Engineering by the numbers. Retrieved from http://wwwtemp.asee.org/publications/profiles/upload/2009ProfileEngOverview.pdf *. National Science Foundation. (2009). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.

4. Introduction Goal of the study: • Identify the disconnects between peoples’ experiences of the parental leave policy and the structures of the policy. Why our goal is important? • To improve our policy and procedures • Demonstrate how this research method can help university administrators improve the labor context of STEM faculty members.

5. Introduction Research Question How does the parental leave policy and procedures shape STEM faculty members’ experiences in ways that affect their personal and career life?

6. Institutional Ethnography Research Methodology* • Starts from the experiences of people in the institution’s processes • Lived experiences of employees help researchers identify: • how social relations structure the bigger institutional system • how policy structures affect employees’ career and life experiences *. Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for people. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. • *. Campbell, M, & Gregor, F. (2004). Mapping social relations: A primer in doing institutional ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMiraPress.

7. Eligible faculty member Parental Leave Policy and procedures (and other policies and procedures) Department head Childcare facilities Teaching load Service (e.g., committees) Internal/ External deadlines Sick leave policy Work-family policies of external grants Advisees Research lab (Others: senior faculty members, mentors, staff members, childcare administrators, etc) Business office administrative(s) Central administration personnel

8. Structuration Theory* • Social systems exist only because of the repeated enactment of structures(rules and procedures) through social practices.e • Social structures are also dual: they not just shape people’s experiences, but also people’s actions reconstruct or shape structures.e • *. Sewell, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. The American • Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1-29.

9. Structuration Theory • In this study, the parental leave policy is our main social system, situated along with the other structures that work together with it (such as FMLA, sick leave, unpaid leave, etc.). Actors < structuration > Parental Leave Policy (and other policies) ( rules and procedures ) Actors < structuration > < structuration > < structures > Actors ( social system )

10. Methods • Semi-structured interviews conducted between 2009 and 2010. • Recruitment mostly through snowball sampling and grassroots • Broad themes were identified first and then we compiled those that were equivalent (using NViVo). • Still collecting data. 25 cases so far.

11. Demographics Eng = 3; Non-STEM = 4; Science = 3; University-Wide admins = 3 (A5 had 2 admins)

12. Themes

13. Childcare

14. Childcare

15. Themes

16. Access to information about parental leave

17. Access to information about parental leave

18. Themes

19. Faculty members continue their work on leave

20. Faculty members continue their work on leave

21. Faculty members continue their work on leave

22. Themes

23. The Need to Improve Adoption Benefits

24. The Way that the Policy is Written

25. Adjusting Pregnancy to Manage Teaching Load

26. Summary Policy as written doesn’t meet faculty members’ needs for leave or childcare Faculty make accommodations to go around policy; The policy remains inadequate

27. Update post ASEE paper • Focus on interviewing department heads. • Race and ethnicity demographics information. • Working paper that analyses the experiences of ten faculty members who took the leave (or who were eligible). • We will submit it this year to JWMSE

28. Policy-Related Recommendations • Researchabout the labor context of STEM faculty members should inform policy-related decisions. • Explore other universities’ policies on modified duties. • Faculty members should seek permission from their department heads to enact their leave intermittently.

29. Other Recommendations • Mechanism in the policy should be included to ensure that faculty members can find childcare services on campus before returning to work. • There is an urgent need of childcareservices for infants less than one year old.

30. Acknowledgements This research is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. HRD 0811194. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

31. Thanks for your attention  Questions? ADVANCE Research Team Purdue Center for Faculty SuccessHall for Discovery and Learning Research207 S. Martin Jischke Drive, Suite 228West Lafayette, IN 47907  (765) 494-9335 Presentation prepared and given by the Research Assistant Marisol Mercado Santiago (mercado@purdue.edu)

32. References a. Gibbons, M.T. (2010). Engineering by the numbers. Retrieved from http://wwwtemp.asee.org/publications/profiles/upload/2009ProfileEngOverview.pdf b.National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics. (2009). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. c.Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for people. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. d. Campbell, M, & Gregor, F. (2004). Mapping social relations: A primer in doing institutional ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. e. Sewell, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. The American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1-29. f.Giddens, A. (1986). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. g. Sullivan, B., Hollenshead, C., & Smith, G. (2004). Developing and implementing work-family policies for faculty [Electronic version]. Academe, 90(6). Retrieved from http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2004/ND/Feat/04ndsulli.htm