Put Yourself in the Equation Posted on January 28, 2008 Margaret Beale Spencer (bio) attests that integrating multiple personas can provide personal and professional satisfaction.

I don't think our work should be artificial. I think one should engage in ideas or areas to study that have some burning interest. And I think we started, I started this discussion in this way, that students need to go into fields that they have interest in, and they have to understand that they as an individual must somehow be in the equation.

To think that we can do things that are just very, very objective and self is not a part of the process at all I don't think is realistic. And I think in some cases we need to come to grips with who we are and what impact we have on what we do. And that means in terms of, as I shared about, mentoring, it means that we need to mentor, be prepared to mentor, everyone. And you can only be a good mentor if you're also being very candid about who you are.

In my discussion this morning with young scholars for example around this, I also shared coming to grips with who you are as a woman or as a man or as a family person, and I don't think that making decisions to take on and enjoy multiple roles at one time is problematic.

When I began my doctoral work at the University of Chicago, I began that work as a doctoral student with a four-month-old and an eighteen-month-old. And our son was born about I guess two or three years later. And Piaget had his N of three, right? And I certainly had my N of three, and one can integrate those roles together.

So I don't think that there is one strategy for becoming a successful and purpose-driven professional who's also successful. I think we can integrate our multiple selves. But I just think that's an important consideration, and too often I think students and women in particular assume that you have to in essence commit to one or the other. But I've learned so much from my own children and my own neighbors in terms of the work, and being able to collapse those roles together I think has made me a much more effective scientist.

But engage a life and to keep my eyes open all the time and to understand that human development takes place across context and embracing that.

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