There's No Prescribed Road Map for Women Posted on February 14, 2006 Bonnie Zima (bio) explains that promotion structures are changing to support family life.

There is no prescribed road map for women in academia, but I think the good news is that increasingly there's more dialogue about how to do it. And I think also there's increasing acknowledgment within the academic community of the need to adapt some of the earlier promotion structures to better support women because yes, there is tension.

The time that one is supposed to be building their career is also the time when you should be in the lower risk zone for birthing healthy babies. It would be a shame to put women in such a position where they would have to choose, and the bottom line is that you shouldn't have to choose and neither should men. I think the other dynamic is that men are increasingly more wanting to be involved as fathers.

I think for students today, they're entering sort of an evolution within the academic centers and the universities in how to better support their junior faculty in being successful in their academic careers, but at the same time, being able to make the transitions that actually will be very rewarding and ironically will actually sustain their careers.

Mechanisms in place that students should ask about is, on their promotions, in their university promotions, do they allow an additional year on your "clock" if you have a child or you adopt a child? That's very important. Do you have mentors or role models that are juggling careers, males and females?

For example, when I was in my research training I think one of the most humbling experiences was, I actually had to send my research protocol to my mentor late at night. I went to his house and he answered the door and he's wearing a Cub Scout den leader T-shirt, and I thought, "This is my kind of mentor". He was doing the Boy Scout assignments and at the same time was reading my research protocol.

And I think that more and more you watch your mentors and your colleagues juggle, somehow being predictably available to your children, predictably available to your spouse, and at the same time doing the trading that needs to go back and forth in your time so that you can also meet your work demands.

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