The author serves as the chair of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) Assembly of State Conferences, the umbrella organization for individual state AAUP conferences; a moderator for Pandora's Project, a website for survivors of sexual abuse and assault; a volunteer for Veronica's Voice, a support program for women and girls…

Faculty members rarely take advantage of family-friendly workplace policies. What are they so afraid of? Few eligible faculty members take formal leaves for childbearing or caregiving. The Faculty and Families Project at the author's university, for example, found that between 1992 and 1999, only four of 257 tenure-track faculty parents at…

Women's lack of progress in academe is well documented: in its 1999-2000 report, the AAUP's Committee on the Economic Status of the Profession found "striking evidence of a distorted gender distribution by rank." Women are more likely than men to end up in low-paid, non tenure-track positions that are often a dead end. Women who do manage to…