Grad School Politics in Assigning Course Sections

[wildviolet]

I never said that the other person should be someone who does not have kids, and I'm sorry if my responses implied so. I was trying to express my viewpoint about the situation and not necessarily make assumptions about the preferences or characteristics of the other person.

The more important factor is that I'm a single parent living in a city halfway across the country from my family (yes, it was a tough decision but the best one for my career, I think). If I could rely on a spouse or other family member to pick up the kids in emergencies then I would have no problem traveling that distance. And while I have hired a babysitter and a backup babysitter, I am ultimately responsible for my kids.

At the beginning of this semester I actually swapped course sections with an adjunct instructor (retired teacher) so she could come to campus only one day a week instead of two. While it wasn't a big deal to me, it was to her because she lives an hour away. Karma--what goes around comes around. I also helped out another single parent colleague who is an international student and had not made any arrangements for childcare, so I helped her out and let her use my after school babysitter since our kids attend the same elementary school. My advisor knows this because she told him, for whatever reason, at the department beginning-of-the-year party at his house that it was a "coincidence." He later asked me about it, and I explained that it was not a coincidence but a deliberate action on my part to assist another person. I can't say for sure how he took this, but I gather it was positive because he has three grown children and surely understands what it's like to balance work and family life. My TA faculty supervisor really likes me and thinks that I did an excellent job of teaching this semester and wants me to teach again next fall. I think all of this contributed to their advocacy on my behalf and the decision-making process.

So I think rising_star is correct. Perhaps I'm turning out to be a department "favorite." If so, I think it's because I've done a good job and am a good person, not because I'm a suck up.

Edited December 8, 2012 by wildviolet

[SeriousSillyPutty]

My two cents:

For the past five years I've lived in a state far from my family. Moving was a choice motivated by economics, but it was a choice. At my job (before I was in grad school) a few people always have to work right around (though not on) Christmas. My coworkers with family in the area would take those days, so that I could go home. They were in no way obliged to do this. I think their conclusion was that, while working on December 26 would be equally undesirable for all of us, the consequences it would have were worse for me, because it would also imply that I wouldn't be with my family for Christmas. This didn't make it "fair", and I wasn't entitled to it, but I think, beyond the fact that I worked with awesome, kind, good people, it was wise to accommodate this, because it creates a better community.

All organizations make decisions on what they will invest in. I stayed at a low-paying job for four years because I valued the work I was doing and the people I was doing it with, and felt they valued me. They showed this by caring about those "extraneous" factors. In my case, it was traveling home for holidays. In other cases, we've covered for peopled because they suddenly had to help their evicted in-laws move, because they were grieved the day after a pet died violently, and because they were taking an evening grad class. The result was that we maintained good, hard-working people in our department, instead of being a revolving door of faceless workers who only stayed until they could find something that paid more. (Incidentally, directives from higher up in the organization are changing this culture, and people are bailing from the organization like crazy -- go figure.)

Maybe for some organizations, including university departments, the only thing they value are people who work the most with the most flexible schedule. Maybe they value prestige, and will accommodate finicky professors who carry clout. Some places value having a variety of perspectives represented, believing this will ultimately add to the richness of the field. Or, they have come to value the contributions of an individual, and wish to invest in that person. I want to be in a place that invests in a wide array of intelligent, hard working people, including people with flaky in-laws, impulsive dogs, distant relatives, and, yes, small children. I want to be in a place that does believe there is a difference between a co-worker making it to a daughter's choir concert and me making it home to watch American Idol. Not everyone has those values, and I'm sure there are highly respected institutions for people like them, but they shouldn't be upset that other organizations/departments have other values.

[wildviolet]

Thanks, SSP! You make a very good point about the situation from the perspective of the organization. Our department is very progressive--we talk about equity (not equality), critical pedagogy, critical race theory, etc.--I would be disappointed if they didn't practice what they preached. It makes sense from the viewpoint of the organization to consider the whole person because you cannot separate your work and personal lives so easily. For example, I don't think I would be as good of an instructor if they forced me to take a position that I didn't want--my work performance would suffer. So there is a tension between the goals of the individual and the goals of the organization, but there's also a balance and a need to work towards common goals. I want to teach my best and my department wants me to teach my best, but I know myself, and I know that I would worry too much if I had to teach in a location that is far away from my kids. My department, advisor, and faculty supervisor knows this, too, which is why the situation has turned out the way it has--they can certainly find another instructor who would be happy to take the position and probably do a better job than I would have.

Yesterday, Larry Cuban wrote about problems/dilemmas in organizations because of value-laden beliefs:

http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/lessons-learned-from-a-career-as-practitioner-and-scholar/

Edited December 9, 2012 by wildviolet

[Eigen]

See, I feel like you're making a different point now than you were before.

The point I get from your early posts is "I shouldn't have to teach this because I have kids". The point I get now is, "Maybe the department can find someone else who would prefer this section, and we can swap to our mutual benefit". The latter seems much less entitled, and like you wouldn't feel like someone without kids should be forced to work the position if they really didn't want it as well, while the former seems to say you don't really care, someone without kids should just take it.

Similarly, both you and SSPI seem to (in my mind) be conflating the organization with the individuals. There's a huge difference between people covering for co-workers to help them out, and the administration forcing people to take a position because of their demographics (have children, childless). In the first case, there's always something of a give and take. You help people out, and make friends, and they help you out when you get in a bind.

Those of us that are quasi-local do this with experiments for people who live farther way- we'll cover things over the Christmas break so they can go home. Same with swapping to teach an earlier section if they have to take a child to school, etc. But I would be quite upset if I was called into our department chair's office and told I was teaching an early section because I didn't have kids.

[lewin]

^^Agree with all of the above.

I want to be in a place that does believe there is a difference between a co-worker making it to a daughter's choir concert and me making it home to watch American Idol. Not everyone has those values, and I'm sure there are highly respected institutions for people like them, but they shouldn't be upset that other organizations/departments have other values.

I feel a bit like you're picking an extreme example to make a point. What if parent is watching Storage Wars with kids, but non-parent is taking care of spouse with cancer? What if parent's kid and non-parent's spouse are in the same choir!? I'm being facetious to make the point that it's dangerous for organizations to play the "this is more important than that" game.

I wouldn't hesitate to cover for a colleague who has a choir concert event if I had something less important going on. But never would I think that their "average" spare time as a parent (or whatever they happen to be doing on a random day) is more worthy than my childless time.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

I wouldn't hesitate to cover for a colleague who has a choir concert event if I had something less important going on. But never would I think that their "average" spare time as a parent (or whatever they happen to be doing on a random day) is more worthy than my childless time.

Hear hear. ("Here here"? I should probably know that one by now. Anyway, I agree.) Kids aren't the only factor that should be considered; perhaps it is easier to get them considered because the situation is easier to explain -- everyone knows if you have kids, everyone may not know if you are the primary caregiver for a sick friend or something. Most of the examples I gave were of accommodating people without children, and as one of those people myself, I appreciate the consideration that have been made for me. It's true there will always be some objectivity in deeming what is important, but that doesn't mean external circumstances should be considered at all. Ideally, there's the win-win situations where someone covers for me around Christmas, and then I work the weekends when his wife is home, but even when that's not possible, I think investing in people who have more specific needs (most obviously children, but perhaps other family issues, important community involvement, or personal disabilities) is still an overall win for the organization if it increases the variety of ideas that are expressed.

That being said, I agree there is a difference between colleagues covering for each other and a top-down mandate, and that the former is much preferred. I think, in extreme situations, mandates are justified if they are necessary to preserve the values of an organization; playing the "I have kids" card shouldn't automatically trump everything else, but kids are higher maintenance than most other things in one's life, so I suspect child-related considerations would end up at the top anyway.

[virmundi]

Two minor points:

1. My supervisor has no interest in or influence over my TA assignments. It's all done by administrators. Norms at other places might differ but I wouldn't get him involved in a TA dispute.

2. I'd be irritated if having kids trumped other concerns (e.g., seniority). It gets dicey when some people's personal lives (e.g., kids) are given priority over others (e.g., seeing my partner, watching TV with wine). It's not the TA-assigners job to make those kinds of judgments.

I do not think that your irritation trumps someone else's efforts to be good parents who are present for their kids -- sorry. And it is precisely the TA-assigner's job to make those kinds of judgments. And they do. All the time. You don't have to like it, but there it is.

[virmundi]

2. In education we discuss the idea of equity a lot. Equity does not mean equality. Different students should not receive the same treatment. To treat everybody the same is to ignore their individual backgrounds, experiences, and situations. I think I should be treated differently because I have kids. My department must think so also because my TA assignment is still up in the air. If they were not considering it, they would have just told me my TA assignment outright and been done with it.

Your effort to raise your kids responsibly is eating into the time that someone else has to sit on the couch and drink wine. You should be ashamed of yourself!

[virmundi]

I wouldn't hesitate to cover for a colleague who has a choir concert event if I had something less important going on. But never would I think that their "average" spare time as a parent (or whatever they happen to be doing on a random day) is more worthy than my childless time.

Parents really don't have "spare time" when they are graduate students with younger children. They work and they parent. Essentially what you are suggesting is that somehow people with kids suck it up or get out. This could also be applied, as it often was in the past, to people who weren't independently wealthy. The point of diversity in the academy is that diversity of experience and background is good for intellectual inquiry.

If you choose not to have kids, then I 100% support your decision, but where do you think that your future students are going to come from if no one else does? It's about the perpetuation of society as much as anything else and surely we all should have some minor investment in that.

And by the way -- I've seen precisely these kinds of shifting around of TAships and teaching schedules, etc. for people who were taking care of sick parents over the long term (and even in one case, a beloved family pet). It's not just people with kids and there is nothing wrong with it. You might need your institution to have this level of humane consideration toward you some day.

Edited December 10, 2012 by virmundi

[lewin]

Maybe being a good, responsible parent would mean waiting until one's life circumstances can support raising a child independently, without forcing one's colleagues to cover for them.

[virmundi]

Maybe being a good, responsible parent would mean waiting until one's life circumstances can support raising a child independently, without forcing one's colleagues to cover for them.

Yes -- let's restrict child-bearing to the 1% now too! Oh elitism -- so charming.

[lewin]

Your effort to raise your kids responsibly is eating into the time that someone else has to sit on the couch and drink wine. You should be ashamed of yourself!

Obviously I didn't make it clear enough from the context that "drinking wine" was a little rhetorical flourish meant to illustrate the broader point that my non-work time, however I choose to use it, is just as important as a parent's time.

I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot so to sum up my opinion...

a.) Individuals covering for each other is great; my department's quite communal and we do this for each other a lot.

b.) Everybody has things outside of school that are important to them. Here's an example that you might be more sympathetic to: My spouse works night shifts and long hours. If I were assigned a TA that required driving 90 minutes 2-3 times per week I might go five days without seeing her. You're saying "kids" is a good reason for accommodation, but why not "working spouse"? By saying, "I have kids and need permanent accommodation," it's implying, "You non-parents, your priorities are less important." Arbitrary top-down judgments about whose personal life is more important is a recipe for unfairness and discontent.

c.) There's a difference between extenuating circumstances and permanent life situations. "My daughter is ill, can you cover my class?" is worlds away from, "For the rest of my PhD, can I be exempted from undesirable TA assignments?" The former is great, the latter is unreasonable.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

Maybe being a good, responsible parent would mean waiting until one's life circumstances can support raising a child independently, without forcing one's colleagues to cover for them.

My point is that everyone has life circumstances that require accommodations at some points (I think seeing one's spouse on a nightly basis is something worth accommodating), and the fact that small children necessitate more of those shouldn't make us bitter. But more directly to your point: In some fields, it is preferred that people do not go straight from undergrad to grad school, but rather have some life experience first. So let's make the timeline:

Graduate undergrad: age 22

Gain five years of work experience & start PhD program: age 27

Finish dissertation (my field is 6 years, so I'll go with that): age 33

2 years post doc (still don't have much clout, so better hold off): age 35

Associate professor! Yay! But oh... if you don't publish like crazy you won't make tenure, so no time for kids: Age 37?

Now that may not mean a bunch to you, but as a female who very much hopes to have children some day, the graph below is a concern to me:

Many people probably do wait until after grad school to have kids. Props to them. My point is it's complicated. You believe that parents should not start grad school unless their children will not influence the accommodations they need. I believe that is unrealistic, and equates to saying that nobody who is the primary caregiver for children (and doesn't have a strong family network in their school town) should enter academia. Many women already have this sense, which is why there are less of them with full professorship status. No, parents shouldn't get carte blanche preference over non-parents, but avoiding spending the day over an hour away from a child's school is a reasonable thing to for a family-supportive department to accommodate.

[virmundi]

Obviously I didn't make it clear enough from the context that "drinking wine" was a little rhetorical flourish meant to illustrate the broader point that my non-work time, however I choose to use it, is just as important as a parent's time.

I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot so to sum up my opinion...

a.) Individuals covering for each other is great; my department's quite communal and we do this for each other a lot.

b.) Everybody has things outside of school that are important to them. Here's an example that you might be more sympathetic to: My spouse works night shifts and long hours. If I were assigned a TA that required driving 90 minutes 2-3 times per week I might go five days without seeing her. You're saying "kids" is a good reason for accommodation, but why not "working spouse"? By saying, "I have kids and need permanent accommodation," it's implying, "You non-parents, your priorities are less important." Arbitrary top-down judgments about whose personal life is more important is a recipe for unfairness and discontent.

c.) There's a difference between extenuating circumstances and permanent life situations. "My daughter is ill, can you cover my class?" is worlds away from, "For the rest of my PhD, can I be exempted from undesirable TA assignments?" The former is great, the latter is unreasonable.

In response to point B, I might suggest that your statement vis-à-vis suggesting that maybe it is irresponsible to have children in graduate school might easily be accompanied by an ancillary statement: "You are not a serious student if you do not sacrifice your personal relationships to your work." Should we admonish people not to have kids in graduate school, but cater to their relationships with adults? Obviously, my answer is: of course not! Let's not get bogged down in creating categories of who *always* deserves what and when.

The point here is to be humane about all of this. It is more humane to enable a single mother to be there for her kids instead of imposing a possibly (and for a graduate student *probably*) crippling financial and life burden of additional childcare and parental absence. It is likewise more humane to schedule a married couple inasmuch as it is possible so that they can see each other and maintain a healthy relationship. It is equally humane to attempt to ensure that single students do not automatically receive the short end of the stick in all situations and at all times.

I am not suggesting -- and I don't think that Wildviolet is either -- that there should be an institutional imperative to screw over people without kids. There is *absolutely nothing wrong* with going to your program administrator and advocating for your needs and desires *whatsoever your situation*. I *always* did this and was able to make successful arguments to my administrator for why I should TA for a certain class and how doing so would be beneficial to my career in academia. This kind of self-advocacy is an important aspect of learning to be a successful academic. No one here is advocating for "arbitrary top-down judgments" dictated by some anonymous "The Man" who is out to screw over people without kids. Why *shouldn't* you be able to advocate for what is best for you and your family? Why shouldn't this be taken into account? Indeed, your irritation and inconvenience *should* gave way to someone else's pressing need. My irritation and inconvenience ought to give way to *your* pressing need. We are *not* cogs in a machine and we *do* have the ability to make cognitive decisions outside of an abstract rubric that strips us of our humanity.

Suggesting that all of this should be reduced strictly to an atomization of personal and highly contingent momentary decisions as opposed to being humanely considered within the systems themselves is an inadequate solution -- it actually doesn't deal with the unforeseeable situation that you, or me, or anyone else might find ourselves in at some point where we really *do* need that entire semester of time on "light duty" because of a family (or personal, etc.) crisis. Should we really find ourselves forced out of our chosen career path because the members of our institutions are forcibly rendered blind to human need out of some notion of professional "fairness"? No one here has said "for the rest of my Ph.D. please exempt me from anything." No one here has advocated for a strict rule that completely screws over the single or the childless.

We can do better than creating abstract and dehumanizing policies that do not allow us to advocate for what we need and to have those needs considered! If am I inconvenienced for a semester so that you can save your marriage -- for God's sake, let us hope that I can manage to put up with this in good humor rather than resenting the fact that this cut into my ability to coordinate with my World of Warcraft group!

Edited December 10, 2012 by virmundi

[Eigen]

I don't think anyone's objecting to the fact that the department should try to make it so that those with young kids don't spend the day teaching an hour away from home.

I think we're objecting to the fact that it would be "OK" to force that TA on someone more senior, who otherwise wouldn't have had to teach it, when it's just as inconvenient to them, just because they don't have kids.

Two of my peers have raised kids in grad school, one of them while he was doing his PhD and his wife was doing her post-doc. I've covered for them, but they never would have expected the department to "force" someone else to do something just because they had kids and the other person didn't.

[virmundi]

I don't think anyone's objecting to the fact that the department should try to make it so that those with young kids don't spend the day teaching an hour away from home.

I think we're objecting to the fact that it would be "OK" to force that TA on someone more senior, who otherwise wouldn't have had to teach it, when it's just as inconvenient to them, just because they don't have kids.

Two of my peers have raised kids in grad school, one of them while he was doing his PhD and his wife was doing her post-doc. I've covered for them, but they never would have expected the department to "force" someone else to do something just because they had kids and the other person didn't.

Okay -- the notion that it is "just as inconvenient" for someone without kids to take a particular TA assignment completely ignores the fact that for people with kids, there are obligations of getting them to/from school, paying for childcare, making them meals, helping them with homework, socializing them, and dozens of other things that are subsumed within these categories. The childless have their own obligations -- and if they have good reasons for not wanting to take on a particular assignment, they should by all means be made to feel welcome in expressing those to the proper personnel within their department and those considerations should be weighed against the legitimate concerns of others.

There is no element of "forcing" someone else to take a crap job except insomuch as the department obviously *does* "force" people to take assignments when they actually create the final list -- but advocating for what you need is not the same thing as pointing at a childless person and saying: "hey, Joe doesn't have kids -- why don't you stick *him* with the three hour commute instead of me?" Creating an equivalency here isn't fair.

And once again, suggesting that covering for someone on a single occasion is an adequate equivalent to making several people's entire lives far less stressful (maybe even just point blank *possible*) for ~15 weeks simply doesn't cut it here. I refer you to the last paragraph in my previous post.

[Eigen]

The assignment is just as inconvenient. The effect on the rest of the lives isn't.

What this comes down to is a difference in fundamental opinion- you seem to feel that, so to speak, we, as a culture, should all pitch in to help out those who have kids, because it benefits society as a whole (referring back to some of your earlier points here). That's just not an opinion I share.

I think that all to often, it leads to taking a lot of the personal choice out of having kids or not. If I choose not to have children because I feel like I'm too busy at this point in my life to adequately take care of them, and/or to financially stretched to adequately support them, but then I end up subsidizing someone else's time with their children (and, of course, through taxes their care costs) by taking evening/remote TA positions so they don't have to.... Then that takes away a lot of the freedom in my decisions.

I think we've hit the "agree to disagree" point in this discussion, personally. You think that those with children as an external responsibility should be put in a special category, and catered to. I don't. I think most of us in grad school are stretched thin enough as it is with our own responsibilities and holding our lives and relationships together without the addition of extra stressors, whether we're single, married and childless or with children.

And since you seem to be getting increasingly patronizing with your treatment of childless people (we're apparently sitting on the couch drinking wine watching TV and playing World of Warcraft) relative to those with children (who are apparently doing the thankless and highly regarded task of raising tomorrow's students for us), I don't think this is going to get anymore productive.

[lewin]

^^Eigen, in your last two posts you've expressed my viewpoint much better than I can myself. Much obliged!

[virmundi]

The assignment is just as inconvenient. The effect on the rest of the lives isn't.

What this comes down to is a difference in fundamental opinion- you seem to feel that, so to speak, we, as a culture, should all pitch in to help out those who have kids, because it benefits society as a whole (referring back to some of your earlier points here). That's just not an opinion I share.

I think that all to often, it leads to taking a lot of the personal choice out of having kids or not. If I choose not to have children because I feel like I'm too busy at this point in my life to adequately take care of them, and/or to financially stretched to adequately support them, but then I end up subsidizing someone else's time with their children (and, of course, through taxes their care costs) by taking evening/remote TA positions so they don't have to.... Then that takes away a lot of the freedom in my decisions.

I think we've hit the "agree to disagree" point in this discussion, personally. You think that those with children as an external responsibility should be put in a special category, and catered to. I don't. I think most of us in grad school are stretched thin enough as it is with our own responsibilities and holding our lives and relationships together without the addition of extra stressors, whether we're single, married and childless or with children.

And since you seem to be getting increasingly patronizing with your treatment of childless people (we're apparently sitting on the couch drinking wine watching TV and playing World of Warcraft) relative to those with children (who are apparently doing the thankless and highly regarded task of raising tomorrow's students for us), I don't think this is going to get anymore productive.

As should be clear from my previous posts, I think that we should all pitch in to help each other -- not just the childless helping those with children. You don't, apparently. At some point, everyone has to leave Galt's Gulch, though.

Edited December 10, 2012 by virmundi

[Eigen]

Actually, I feel like I've been quite clear about saying that we should all pitch in to help one another.

I think I've said that in almost every one of my posts.

What I don't like is the idea that those with children are in some privileged pool that are more deserving of help than others.

Nor do I like the idea that people be "forced" to help. I think it leads to bitterness and discord down the road.

If everyone pitches in and helps out, things go more smoothly for everyone. If some people feel like everyone should pitch in to help them out because they so obviously need it, that's not the case.

And if we go back to the post (OP) that started the whole discussion, the statement was "I don't see why I couldn't just be swapped with one of the instructors teaching the course I want". That's not asking people to pitch in and help out, that's saying that because the OP has children, she should be swapped out with one of the instructors and they should be given the commute. There was no question of "maybe they have something that makes it hard on them to drive", but a straight up implication of "I have kids, so I shouldn't have to do it and someone else should". Or at least that's how several of us seem to be reading it.

Nice strawman in the last post, though.

[virmundi]

Actually, I feel like I've been quite clear about saying that we should all pitch in to help one another.

I think I've said that in almost every one of my posts.

What I don't like is the idea that those with children are in some privileged pool that are more deserving of help than others.

Nor do I like the idea that people be "forced" to help. I think it leads to bitterness and discord down the road.

If everyone pitches in and helps out, things go more smoothly for everyone. If some people feel like everyone should pitch in to help them out because they so obviously need it, that's not the case.

And if we go back to the post (OP) that started the whole discussion, the statement was "I don't see why I couldn't just be swapped with one of the instructors teaching the course I want". That's not asking people to pitch in and help out, that's saying that because the OP has children, she should be swapped out with one of the instructors and they should be given the commute. There was no question of "maybe they have something that makes it hard on them to drive", but a straight up implication of "I have kids, so I shouldn't have to do it and someone else should". Or at least that's how several of us seem to be reading it.

Nice strawman in the last post, though.

Not a strawman. You've been pretty clear that you want to help only explicitly on your terms and that you think the institutional response should be to privilege seniority. I feel, as I've been clear, that the institution should be humane and receptive to the requests of students who have needs. At my M.A. institution, I was once a TA along with another student. We both had to teach two sections for the class. Two sections were at 8am and two were at 2pm. The professor's initial plan was to assign each of us one of the early morning sections and one of the afternoon sections. In the end, the professor ended up giving me both 8am sections and the other individual the plum 2pm sections. Why? For an excellent reason:

1. Said other TA could not afford to live in University town (prohibitively expensive place to live -- few of us could afford to live there) and lived 20+ miles away.

2. Said other TA's bicycle (and all bicycles) were repeatedly stolen from storage facilities at the apartment complex where he lived. Commuting by bicycle had become impossible because the lease also forbade keeping bicycles in one's apartment(!) -- ironically, while the landlord apparently could not prevent theft of said bicycles, they could indeed tell who had bicycles stored in their apartments.

3. TA had to take the bus to the university -- and the earliest bus route within walking distance did not come by until 7:30am -- meaning that student couldn't physically get to campus before 8:20 or so with all of the stops along the route.

As another student who couldn't afford to live in university town, I ended up having a 30 mile commute to get to my sections smack in the middle of rush hour making my average commute time anywhere between 50-80 minutes, meaning that I had to be up out and of the house at 6:30am twice a week so that I could sit in traffic to make what would, by 9am, have been literally only a 30 minute drive.

Inconvenient? Absolutely -- it was inconvenient as hell. What was inconvenient for me, however, was literally this student's only way of holding onto his funding, receiving his tuition remission, and thus being able to stay in graduate school and fulfill his dream. He is now a first-year student in a Ph.D. program at a great university that, thankfully, has better funding and lower costs of living in his area. If the professor hadn't been flexible in the scheduling or had this option, this person would have lost his funding entirely since there were no other opportunities for said person to TA elsewhere in the department that semester that didn't involve the same 8am trap.

So was I inconvenienced? Yeah. I'm not going to pretend that it didn't suck. But *it didn't suck as much as having to literally abandon my dreams because of an inflexible system*.

I'm glad that my professor was looking out for students that way (by the way, the professor was my advisor, but not of the other student), and I am grateful that in a scenario where I wanted to TA for a certain professor because it gave them a chance to evaluate me as a teacher and say more about me when they wrote me a LOR, my department was willing to consider it and ultimately approve my request.

Like I said before, there is a difference between people pitching in in an atomized and contingent fashion -- "sure I'll cover your section on Thursday" -- and being willing to bite the bullet without complaint one semester because someone advocated for -- and got -- a better assignment because of childcare issues, or a sick parent, or an upcoming surgery, etc. I don't have a problem with the latter. I've been both a "winner" and a "loser" because the institution *didn't* stick to a mode of "fairness" that solely considered seniority, but a mode of "fairness" that considered a myriad of factors, some professional and others personal. I prefer the latter -- it is more humane.

Edited December 10, 2012 by virmundi

[R Deckard]

I do not think that your irritation trumps someone else's efforts to be good parents who are present for their kids -- sorry. And it is precisely the TA-assigner's job to make those kinds of judgments. And they do. All the time. You don't have to like it, but there it is.

It's the TA-assigner's job to judge whose life is most important? Really?

[virmundi]

It's the TA-assigner's job to judge whose life is most important? Really?

TA-ships are not assigned on random criteria and not all of those criteria are restricted solely to professional concerns. This really is the case in many departments -- at least in my field.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

Probably not of interest to any of you, but I was amused that a friend posted something about older parenthood just after I commented on infertility. Some suggest the best solution is to wait for kids until grad school is done. This article suggests that, for society as a whole, that is a riskier trend than we at first realized:

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/110861/how-older-parenthood-will-upend-american-society?page=0%2C0

[Arcadian]

Probably not of interest to any of you, but I was amused that a friend posted something about older parenthood just after I commented on infertility. Some suggest the best solution is to wait for kids until grad school is done. This article suggests that, for society as a whole, that is a riskier trend than we at first realized:

http://www.tnr.com/a...ociety?page=0,0

That's good information, but is this really going to be a decision-maker for most people? "I'm not ready to have kids yet, but I better do it now before my ovaries get old!" That would be foolish... People should have kids when the time is right for them. Most people don't have the luxury of letting biology dictate that. For most of us, social/cultural/career concerns are a much bigger factor.

And I also want to point out that never having kids is a totally viable option! I'm considering that one myself.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Arcadian