The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 17, 2006, Friday

Copyright 2006 The Chronicle of Higher Education
All Rights Reserved
The Chronicle of Higher Education

November 17, 2006 Friday

SECTION: THE FACULTY; Pg. 12 Vol. 53 No. 13


HEADLINE: Tying the Knot Helps Students, Especially Men,Succeed in Graduate School

BYLINE: ROBIN WILSON

BODY:
Graduate students who worry that marriage will derail their plans to earndoctoral degrees can relax. Being hitched, says a new study, is particularlygood for male students and is beneficial for female ones as well.
Joseph Price, a graduate student in economics at Cornell University, who ismarried with three children, says he had always felt at odds with the commonwisdom that having a spouse while in graduate school would slow down a student."It's hard to do research," says Mr. Price, for whom the benefits of marriageseem transparent. "You have to have something that keeps you going throughoutthe day. I want to get done by 5 because I like to eat dinner with thefamily."
Mr. Price studied data gathered on 11,000 graduate students over a 20-yearperiod in 100 academic departments. He found that the married men among themwere 75 percent likelier than the single men to finish their degrees quickly-- within four years -- and nearly 30 percent likelier to finishwithin seven years. On average, he found, married male students were 13 percentlikelier to publish during graduate school than were single male students, and35 percent likelier to obtain tenure-track jobs within six months ofgraduating.
The benefits of marriage were not as strong for women but are still apparent.Married women, Mr. Price found, were 25 percent likelier than their singlefemale counterparts to finish graduate school within just four years. Marriedwomen were 33 percent likelier to publish while in graduate school than weresingle women, but had no better chance of landing a tenure-track post within sixmonths of graduating.
Mr. Price says he "wanted to debunk the myth that married students are going todo worse" than unmarried ones. That doesn't mean he recommends that someone whois having trouble in graduate school should go out and get married. But "ifyou're on the margin of making the decision," he says, "you shouldn't think it'sgoing to drastically harm you as a grad student."
A working paper on his study, "Does a Spouse Slow You Down?: Marriage andGraduate Student Outcomes," has been released by the Cornell Higher EducationResearch Institute. Mr. Price has also submitted it for publication in thejournal Demography. The paper is available online(http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp94.pdf ).
***Smith College wants to give a second chance to women who thought it was too lateto consider a career in mathematics. With a $1.5-million grant from the NationalScience Foundation, Smith is opening a center for women who are interested inpursuing graduate degrees in mathematics but didn't complete enoughundergraduate math to qualify.
Lots of colleges have programs to encourage high-school girls to considermajoring in math. But the Smith program is one of just a handful designed toencourage women to pursue graduate degrees in mathematics. One goal of theprograms is to increase the number of female faculty members in thediscipline.
Smith's Center for Women in Mathematics, which will open next academic year,will cover living expenses and tuition for as many as 16 students each year whowill take up to six mathematics courses at the college.
"A lot of women don't think they're that serious about mathematics," says RuthHaas, chairwoman of the department of mathematics and statistics at Smith andco-director of the new center. "It takes them awhile to realize they could beserious mathematicians."
***A Web site for people doing research on transgender issues is expanding and maylead to the first professional organization for scholars in the subject.
Eli R. Green, a graduate student in Widener University's human-sexualityprogram, started Trans-academics.org in December 2002 to provide a road map forgraduate programs that encourage students to do research on transgenderissues.
"It's getting popular to be working on trans research -- it's the newthing," says Mr. Green. "But finding professors who know anything about transstuff and are willing to be supportive can be challenging."
The site offers information on programs in a variety of disciplines, includinganthropology, cultural studies, medicine, and sociology. It also lists newpublications that deal with transgender issues.
Mr. Green says he and other young scholars plan on having the expanded Web sitein December and may start "a professional trans organization" for those who doresearch on the subject.
***A new book explores how people from working-class backgrounds fare in one of thecountry's most prestigious careers -- the professoriate. "Reflections Fromthe Wrong Side of the Tracks: Class, Identity, and the Working Class Experiencein Academe" (Rowman & Littlefield), was edited by two male professors, bothof whom grew up in households of Italian immigrant laborers.
The book contains essays by Ph.D.'s of working-class origins who explore theirfeelings of alienation from both their own families and their academiccolleagues.
Jennifer Beech, an assistant professor of English at the University of Tennesseeat Chattanooga, tells how she went to college on a beauty-pageant scholarship.But now that she holds a doctorate, she writes, she finds herself "less able topass as a member" of her Alabama hometown. Another essayist writes about beingasked to leave her family's Thanksgiving celebration one year after her familyaccused her of "spreading liberalist bullshit."
But David Kauzlarich, who attended a community college and considered becoming acop, writes that he still feels more comfortable with people from working-classbackgrounds.
He enjoys teaching at a medium-sized, regional university -- he is anassociate professor of sociology and criminal justice at Southern IllinoisUniversity at Edwardsville -- because, he writes, the students are likehim. They get his jokes. Culturally, he is still miles apart from most of hiscolleagues. He likes punk music, had never heard of a single classical artistuntil he went to graduate school, and favors camping, fishing, and hiking overtraveling abroad. He enjoys watching Sunday-afternoon football games and "thepunishing blows of hockey." He asks, "Is squash ever televised?"
***Stanford University's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research iscompleting a survey of 30,000 professors at 12 top research universities tolearn about how professors who are married to other professors have navigatedthe academic hiring process and managed their careers. In a news release, theinstitute said it wanted to come up with recommendations to encourageuniversities to stop dealing with academic couples "as a problem to be solvedrather than recognizing that academic partners constitute a growing trend."
Results of the survey should be available by next summer and will be the subjectof a national conference on academic couples at Stanford next fall.