Equitable Conferencing: Caregivers Perspectives and Prospects

Navigating Caregiver Challenges at Conferences:

My Experience
by Gina Scutelnicu, Pace University

Gina Scutelnicu is an Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Public Administration at Pace University and a proud academic parent of two young children.

Attending and presenting at conferences is extremely important, especially for graduate students and junior faculty, as these venues are ripe opportunities for networking, getting constructive feedback and establishing an academic reputation. My conference presentations and participations helped me develop a healthy professional network, develop and sustain an active research agenda, stay up-to-date with current research in my area, turn my papers into refereed articles, become a peer-reviewer, serve on the board of several professional associations, and serve on the editorial board of one journal. 

I had children during the most busiest and challenging times in the life of an academic: I had my son during my dissertation writing years and my daughter during my tenure-track years. Having children occurred during the same time when I needed to start and develop my academic career. Attending and presenting at academic conferences was one way of getting known so, I made sure I presented my research at least twice a year. My spouse offered the support that I needed during these difficult times. He would travel with me and my son, and later, my daughter to conferences held across the country in places such as Kentucky, California, North Carolina, Maryland, Vermont, Louisiana, Florida, Colorado etc. For half of the conferences I attended during this time in my life I was only able to present my research papers. I was not able to network beyond fulfilling my conference roles as a presenter, or panel moderator/discussant. I had to miss out on some of the conference experiences: I did not attend other panels, luncheons or professional development opportunities. But this semi-exposure to the academic network helped me a lot in my career and I am very grateful that I had this opportunity.

Being a woman and an immigrant from a non-Western culture in the U.S. made it more difficult to have access to resources for conferences, most likely, because I was not familiar with the U.S. higher education system and national culture. I did not know that I could ask for more travel money or viewed asking for more resources as inappropriate. When I was a Ph.D. candidate, my university would only cover $300 towards conference travel per year for graduate students. Towards the end of my doctoral studies, I witnessed how women peers who were born and raised in the U.S. were successful in asking and securing significant funds for conference travel both domestically and internationally. This experience served as a lesson for my next career stage. After becoming an Assistant Professor, the amount of my travel funds increased significantly but I still had to supplement and invest in my professional development. Reflecting back on my own experience I would definitely advise women of various backgrounds to, at least, ask for more funding for conference travel.

Typically, conference funding required that I presented a paper and covered registration fees, transportation, accommodation and some food costs but it would not cover caregiver costs. I remember of a specific conference (Midwest Political Science Association) that would offer childcare scholarships at the conference hotel for caregivers who were presenters. Given my personal and subjective experience, caregivers and especially women face several barriers to conference participation. These are: 

• Lack of any institutional funding that can be used towards child or elderly care when attending conferences.
• Lack of or limited family support to help with child care.
• Lack of or limited access to everything conferences have to offer - which may end up in limited visibility among the academic community and longer time to establish an academic reputation.

Some of the recommendations to overcome such barriers consist of the following:

• Institutions should offer their employees child-care assistance programs in the form of subsidies and access to child-care centers (Gordon & Rauhaus, 2019) such as vouchers, reimbursements, tuition scholarships, and offering discounts through child-care network programs. 
• Institutions could create dependent care travel funds or repurpose travel funds to include child or elder care expenses for their faculty and staff. Such funds could cover the additional hours of care at home when employers travel, costs for childcare at/or transportation to a conference site (see Brown University’s initiative).
• Professional associations and conference organizers could provide child and dependent care as a service for a fee or as a scholarship, and
• Conferences could organize family-friendly professional development activities and events at conference sites.

Work-life balance is different for men and women as women are, still, expected to contribute more at home when working and having young children (Scutelnicu, Knepper & Tekula, 2018, p. 33). Offering attractive work-life benefits such as child-care support for conference participation would lead to high retention rates among employees (Gordon & Rauhaus, 2019), would narrow the inequity gender gap in the workplace as women tend to be the majority of caregivers (Gerson, 2017) , would increase women’s advancement opportunities in academia by helping them to break the glass ceiling (Scutelnicu & Knepper, 2019), and would create more inclusive work environments (Knepper, Scutelnicu & Tekula, forthcoming). As we are witnessing a declining trend in college enrollment (Fain, 2019) it is important for institutions of higher learning to pay attention and support the needs of current caregivers to make sure they sustain a steady future generation of students. 

Gina Scutelnicu, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Chair of the Public Administration Department 

at Pace University

E-mail:gscutelnicu@pace.edu

Gina Scutelnicu is an associate professor and chair in the Department of Public Administration at Pace University, New York. She has a Ph.D. degree in Public Affairs from Florida International University, a MA in Public Service Management and a BA in Public Administration from Babes-Bolyai University, Romania. One line of her current research examines gender equity in academia. Her work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals among which are Journal of Public Affairs Education, Public Integrity, Journal of Public Management and Social Policy and Public Administration Quarterly.