Equitable Conferencing: Caregivers Perspectives and Prospects

A Call for Feedback on Conferencing with Children

by Kendra B. Stewart, College of Charleston

One of my fondest recent conference experiences was sitting next to Paul Danczyk at an ASPA plenary session while his two young children played quietly on the floor in front of us.  If you had told me 15 years ago when I was bringing my young children to public administration conferences that in the near future I would be sitting next to an ASPA Vice President as he modeled good parenting and partnering in a general session I would not have believed it.  I was so pleased that Paul was sending a message that even though childcare was not an option at the conference, bringing your children still is an option.  

There was a time when I first began conferencing (I choose not to say how long ago that was) when childcare was periodically offered at conferences.  Particularly academic conferences. I never used this option because I was fortunate to have a partner who usually was able and willing to travel with me so our children could come and I could do the things I needed to do (like nurse and kiss my children goodnight) while working.  This practice seems to have gone by the wayside and mostly, from what I can tell, it is because of underutilization. However, I am certain that organizations like ASPA would be willing to bring this back if they thought it would be used.  

With record numbers of women in the workforce, there is no doubt that we need to rethink what we are doing in terms of allowing more work/life balance into our professional meetings – for both women AND men.  Conferencing with your children can be a wonderful experience, but it can also be stressful if there is not good support. I recall one conference with my then 5-year-old son when I had to bring him to a panel I was on because there was no other option.  He was fairly well behaved, coloring in his books on a chair, until I began my presentation. At that point he stood up and announced that I was his mother and began waving. No one in the room was amused, except for one of my co-panelists. I was mortified.  We need to be sure that our working parents with young children have the opportunity to participate in and enjoy our conference experiences while still tending to their families if they choose to bring them.  

So, I pose the question to you all – our next generation of scholars and practitioners – what can we do to offer you the support you need if you choose to bring your children to a conference?  Is the traditional childcare model of interest? Or do you have another idea that could prove more successful? How do we send a message that we are family-friendly and that you don’t have to choose between tending to your career OR tending to your children?  All ideas are welcome and I am listening!

Kendra B. Stewart is Professor of Political Science and Public Administration and Director of the Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Center for Livable Communities at the College of Charleston.  Her research interests include South Carolina government, non-profit management, state and local government, food policy, and women and politics. She is co-editor of a book entitled The Practice of Government Public Relations.  The articles she has authored have appeared in various journals including Urban Affairs Review, Public Finance and Management, Perspective in Politics, Journal of Public Affairs Education, Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition as well as in various scholarly books.  

Dr. Stewart is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), an independent, nonprofit, and non-partisan organization chartered by Congress to assist government leaders in building more effective, efficient, accountable, and transparent organizations.  She was also elected to serve as President of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) for 2020-2021. Dr. Stewart has conducted political analysis for a variety of print, radio and television media, including Good Morning America, Fox News Channel, the Associated Press, The New Yorker, and National Public Radio.  

Dr. Stewart received her undergraduate degree from the University of Central Florida and her Master of Public Administration and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of South Carolina.  Prior to her current position, Dr. Stewart was a faculty member at Eastern Kentucky University and worked for the state of South Carolina Budget and Control Board. In addition, she has conducted program evaluations and strategic planning assistance to a variety of public and nonprofit organizations.  Dr. Stewart is very involved in the community as well, serving on the boards of several professional and non-profit organizations.

Equitable Conferencing: Caregivers Perspectives and Prospects

Assessing the Challenges and Barriers to Conference Participation

by Layla Alanazi,

Virginia Common Wealth University

As a mother of an infant and a toddler, a wife, and a Ph.D. student, I took the decision to take my children with me in all of the conferences which I plan to attend. My husband has been of great help to me as he babysits with them at the hotel where we are staying while I present, participant, and enjoy the conferences. While we both as a couple started our family as graduate students and we both have the same career bath, things do not always seem easy as it sounds. 

For me as a mother, planning to attend a conference while having young children is a challenge in many ways. First, there is no space or childcare accommodation in any of the conferences that I have been to except a few that provide nursing or breastfeeding rooms for mothers. Second, the financial difficulties that we undergo to go as a family to attend a conference is always a serious issue. Examples of these costs include purchasing air tickets, providing appropriate accommodations for a family, and childcare Third, I have to lose many conference opportunities or try other ways like coauthoring as a way to opt-out from presenting at conferences to meet my motherhood responsibilities. 

Attending and participating in conferences for a mother like me with young children sometimes feels like a burden. Not a burden in terms of money, but always in terms of time and the expectations for research, work, and the various school duties. While I do not believe it is a healthy thing for our family or others with the same situations to exceed those expectations, the culture of academia needs to change towards mothers with children. At the school level, there must some kind of policies granting incentives for women scholars with children to participate in conferences, most notably graduate students. Examples of those incentives can include reimbursing the student to cover for travel or childcare incurred costs. At the conference level, logistics should not impede the full participation of parents with children. These logistics can include arrangements, such as providing an affordable childcare zone, planning family-friendly activities, allocating nursing rooms for mothers, and organizing special receptions for families traveling with children. 

At the macro level, School policies need to be set fairly to save families in terms of providing an appropriate maternal leave, financial support, and accommodations, so that no student-regardless of his or her gender-is left behind. While no study shows how many women opt out of graduate school to meet their motherhood responsibilities, the current structure of academia has unfairly empowered men and childless women, and participate in systematically marginalizing women and their dependents. To better provide a healthy, non-toxic, and non-stressful School environment for mothers with young children, policymakers need to answer urgent questions: what policies have been made to address this challenge, and what steps have been taken to help remove the barriers to conference participation for this group? 

Layla is a Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy and Administration program at the Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.  She holds a master’s degree in Global Human Resources Management from the Management School at the University of Liverpool. Also, she holds another master’s degree in Industrial Relations and Human Resources from the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. Her research interests include human resources management, organizational behavior, performance management, and public management.

Equitable Conferencing: Caregivers Perspectives and Prospects

Four Ways to Help Academic Parents Conference with Ease

by Hannah Lebovits,
Cleveland State University

Much like being a grizzled Auror in the Harry Potter universe, parenting involves “constant vigilance” (RIP Mad-Eye Moody). No, I’m not endorsing hover-parenting, I’m referring to the basic awareness of where your kids are and what their most basic needs might be at any given time. If your children aren’t yet old enough to be home alone, you know that this state is definitely constant and absolutely requires vigilance. Day-care and school hours are finite, and you are wholly responsible for everything that happens before and after someone else is watching your child (and during, but that’s another conversation). This makes academic conferences a challenge for many parents who are the primary caregiver. Your youngins rely on you being around all night, early in the morning and after school/day-care hours. 

The stress permeates everything- from the application process until the return flight. Appropriate plans must be somewhat secure before applying, no one wants to be “that person” who dropped out of a conference, after the proposal was accepted. Once accepted though, the heavy lifting really begins. It’s time to deal with payments- registration costs, travel, additional childcare, etc. Schools might cover basic travel costs, but child related expenses are expenses and not often covered in full. Detailed arrangements must be made, deposits often have to be put down- and on-site childcare might be needed if children lack the permanent attachment system that allows them to be left without parents for a significant amount of time (i.e. nursing babies, young children, newly adopted children, etc.)

Still, even when everything is perfectly aligned- drama always seems to arise. Kids get sick the day before you’re about to leave, plans fall through, on-site childcare gets cancelled. Travel can be anxiety ridden, with parents running through a never-ending mental list of every possible scenario, attempting to ensure that no matter what- their children remain safe, well-cared for, and (at least mostly) on schedule. 

What can our universities, conference organizers, professional associations and fellow academics do to assist parents? 

Here are four simple ideas:

1. For conference organizers: Offer reduced one-day admissions so that academic parents can come in for just a single day of the conference. This isn’t our ideal either- but it allows us to at least attend and present, even when we can't stay to network and support others.
2. Also, for conference organizers: Include child-related information in the call for proposals/original conference information. Make information related to nursing rooms, childcare, and other accommodations clearly outlined at the proposal stage by providing a directory and conference center maps to ensure that parents are aware of the resources available. Include a tab on the conference website that clearly supplies this information.   
3. For conference go-ers: If you know an academic parent that might be considering going to a conference, reach out WHEN THE CALL COMES OUT and offer to help/support them in any way. The week before or day of is too late, we’ve already decided the conference isn’t a possibility or we’ve already booked childcare arrangements.
4. For universities: Make conference spending flexible enough to cover child related costs, in addition to booking airfare, hotels, and other travel costs. If the university cannot pay directly for the childcare costs, they should at least immediately reimburse the conferencing parent so that that money can be spent on child-related costs. We might be a long way from seeing the whole academic and all of the costs associated with conference travel as a singular entity, but a mom can dream.

Hannah Lebovits is a PhD candidate in urban studies and public affairs at Cleveland State University. Her research focuses on issues related to social equity, justice, and sustainability in local/regional governance. She is also a frequent contributor to local and national news outlets. She lives in Cleveland, OH with her husband and two children. 

Social media info: Twitter- @HannahLebovits 

Equitable Conferencing: Caregivers Perspectives and Prospects

Single Parent Duty

by Anonymous

When I started my doctoral program, I had recently re-married.  Initially, my new husband and child did not see my endeavor as a doctoral student as “real work” because in the words of my child (who was nine years old when I started my program), “It doesn’t look that hard.  All you do is read.” Yes, it’s true that I had quit my full-time job to attend school full-time and work as a graduate assistant to fund my education. And yes, I was always reading at home. However, this led us to have a difficult conversation as a family when I began to travel to academic conferences to present my work.  I quickly realized that academic conferences are designed for people who either don’t have children to worry about or have someone at home taking care of them.

Initially, I traveled to conferences that were relatively close to home, requiring no more than an overnight stay.  For a new stepdad, that seemed manageable. However, once the trips required plane travel, figuring out flights that worked around my husband’s work schedule and that fit our budget (because support from school was in the form of a reimbursement), things became more challenging.  Because we were essentially a single income household, my husband’s job performance was critical to ensure raises, promotions, and bonuses. Leaving him behind with a small child for me to travel to an academic conference for three to four days was very stressful for him. What if our child was sick and needed to be picked up from school or needed to stay home? What if he couldn’t work late because there was no one else to pick up our child from the afterschool program? My husband did not want to be “that guy” who was not available to an employer’s beck and call because of a childcare issue while I was off gallivanting at academic conferences.  I needed both of them to understand that these academic conferences were an important part of my job as a doctoral student, but also for my future in academia. It took them attending part of an academic conference with me to fully appreciate what I was doing.

Once they experienced the intense schedule of a conference, they realized it was “work” and wanted to be more proactive in supporting me.  My husband was able to work out a telework schedule when I was traveling. As he earned promotions, he was also able to have more control over his own work travel schedule so that it wouldn’t conflict with mine.  As our child grew older and was engaged in more activities, we relied on my high school and college friends who had moved to the area to help in case of emergencies. While these things sound simple, not everyone has a partner with job flexibility or has the benefit of friends and family living nearby to help.  This means families or single parents without these support systems might spend more money on childcare or even forego attending a conference.

This phase in our marriage and family life gives me pause.  The conflict revealed so many issues that working mothers, and especially single parents, still face today.  I was only able to expand my career opportunities once I re-married and had another trustworthy adult committed to raising a child with me. Yet, somehow single parents are doing what seemed impossible to me when I was a single mother.  I have met a few at academic conferences! Here are some suggestions for supporting single parents and single income families attending academic conferences:

• Consider holding conferences around federal holidays during the school year.  While it’s impossible to work around every jurisdiction’s school calendar, nearly all close for the same federal holidays.
• Consider holding conferences during summer break and offer programs for school-aged children in addition to other childcare options.  This could be a great opportunity to partner with education leaders, nonprofit organizations, college prep, and/or technical training programs at free or reduced costs.
• Offer travel and childcare scholarships for single parents and one income families. 

Although my family is very supportive and proud that I completed my doctoral degree, it took them a while to fully get it.  Figuring out our roles, experiencing stress over work and finances, and managing life as a single parent when one of us must travel for work took us some time.  My hope is that conference planners will take into consideration that even those of us who are married with children face childcare issues because the spouse left at home is on “single parent” duty.  Single parents face these types of challenges on a regular basis and more support should be offered to them as well.  

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The author is an anonymous admirer of single, working mothers who manage to rise above the challenges and gender discrimination they encounter. She also acknowledges the spouses and partners who take on “single parent” duties to support their student/scholar’s careers.