Full Description
This book explores the issue and struggle of work-life balance in higher education. It provides a rare opportunity to shape the conversation surrounding work-life balance in academia and provide a venue for dialogue around balance that had previously been forced into secret.
The challenges that surround work-life balance are something that we must all confront, but they are also something that is rarely discussed within academia. Faculty and graduate students face increasing demands to publish, while also being expected to effectively teach and engage in service to both the university and the community. The demands of an academic career have been cited as a reason for faculty and students to leave the academy, but they have also been tied with rising rates of depression throughout the community. Concerns about balance have led to challenges in recruiting diverse students and faculty for academic careers.
Each chapter explores how faculty and graduate students have sought and found balance. The research included in this book is by leading scholars who discuss the challenge for academia to pay attention to the cultures and policies that may improve, or hinder, work-life balance.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Public Affairs Education.
Contents
Finding balance: An introduction to Work- Life Balance in Higher Education Part I: Framing work- life balance 1. Academics of PA or: How we learned to stop working and find some balance 2. Life and work: Always choosing Part II: Addressing work- life balance 3. Examining junior faculty work- life balance in public affairs programs in the United States 4. Investigating faculty motivation and its connection to faculty work- life balance: Engaging public service motivation to explore faculty motivation 5. Work- life balance and well- being of graduate students 6. Hyper- separation as a tool for work/ life balance: Commuting in academia 7. Reflections on tenure, the two- body problem, and retention in the 21st century academy 8. Implementing specifications grading in MPA courses: A potential strategy for better work- life balance
