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2007 APAGS Convention Programming - Monday
Monday – August 20, 2007
Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
Monday
Food For Thought Breakfast
APAGS Suite
7:00–8:00am Breakfast
8:00–8:50am Discussion
Invited Psychologist:
Alan E. Kazdin, PhD, ABPP, APA President-Elect
Limited seats are available for this complimentary breakfast and discussion with a distinguished psychologist. Please sign up at the APAGS Booth to reserve your spot.
Negotiating Having Children at Different Developmental Stages of Academia
Moscone Center, Room 303
9:00–9:50am
Presenters:
Ann W. Chan, MS, MA, Stanford University (Chair)
Christine J. Yeh, PhD, University of San Francisco
Susan Ramirez, BA, Southern Illinois University
Lisa Suzuki, PhD, New York University
Description:
“When is the right time to have children?” is a commonly asked question that confronts academic women as they face competing and pressing claims of school, career, family, relationships, and ticking biological clocks. Another frequently asked question is, “How does she do it?” This conversation hour provides the opportunity for attendees to learn from the perspectives of academic women who chose to have children at various stages of their careers. The primary purpose of this conversation hour is to provide a forum for a frank and open discussion of the challenges, joys, and advantages of having children at different stages of the academic journey. The speakers will speak to the physical, psychological, emotional, financial, and professional demands of having a baby while pursuing a career in psychology. This symposium is designed with a developmental perspective in mind: representative graduate students and faculty will provide intimate perspectives about their personal and professional experiences of having children at the pre-dissertation, dissertation, pre-tenure, and post-tenure stages. They will also offer advice, strategies, and tips on balancing early motherhood with a demanding academic career. The overall goal of this conversation hour is to provide a space for honest, open, and heartfelt dialogue about this topic so that women in the field of psychology can be validated and informed about having children in the midst of their academic and professional journeys.
(1) Motherhood and Academia: A Graduate Student’s Perspective
Although motherhood in academia is not a unique or unusual pairing, negotiating the two
simultaneously can feel like a dialectical process (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004). Why might this be? Is it the person (i.e., one’s personal ideology), the situation (e.g., strong social support—to include emotional and instrumental), or the academy that defines a successful partnership? Like most relationships, chances are, it is a combination of these ingredients. If so, how do you know when you have attained success and when you have fallen short? Personally, the answer to this question is much more nebulous.
As a mother and graduate student, my definition of success is both static and ongoing. It is static in the sense that each day I communicate to my son that he is loved and adored I have attained success. It is ongoing in that most days I must make decisions that impact how much I time I will devote to expressing to him my love and admiration. In essence, a good number of days involve asking myself, “At this moment, do I need to be a good mother, or a good graduate student?” How I go about making this decision may involve one, or a multitude of factors—a process that varies in degree and intensity.
In contributing to this discussion on motherhood and academia, I will share challenges and lessons learned in negotiating motherhood and graduate school. In doing so, I wish to further engage participants a dialogue on what factors need to be considered, and re-considered, when deciding to pursue motherhood and academia.
(2) Work/Family Balance at the Dissertation Stage
The demographics of psychology have shifted such that more and more females of childbearing age are entering the field of psychology. Indeed, in 2003, almost 75% of new doctorate recipients were women (APA Research Office, 2003). There has been limited research conducted in the area of pre-tenure academic women having children, however, to my knowledge, no one has yet done a study of women having children at the dissertation stage. Clearly, this issue of having children and being a graduate student in psychology/academia is a significant one to address. This presentation focuses on issues of balancing family and work at the dissertation stage. Attention
will be paid to the physical, biological, psychological, social, interpersonal, and vocational stressors and challenges at this particular stage of one’s academic career. Using combined theoretical, research, and personal perspectives, this presentation will focus on the five specific challenges (and joys) of having a child at the dissertation stage:
- Multi-tasking: Completing an independent, large dissertation project while simultaneously going through post-partum recovery, learning to adapt to a baby’s idiosyncratic schedule, and mastering new skills of parenting;
- Role conflict (Marshall & Barnett, 1993): Negotiating personal and professional boundaries (or lack thereof) between work and family (American Association of University Professors, 2001);
- Adjustment to post-partum marital relationship: Dealing with additional childcare responsibilities in light of stereotyped gender-roles (Hochschild, 1989).
- Adjustment to a post-partum graduate student/mom identity (Armenti, 2000; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004);
- “Buffering” (Barnett & Hyde, 2002): Finding meaning and richness in the complementarity of work and family roles.
My goal is to provide prospective moms (and their advisors) real-life and research insights into the experience of juggling motherhood and the dissertation. Participants will leave feeling informed as well as empowered about taking on this dual-role identity in all its complexity and richness.
(3) Negotiating multiple roles in the tenure process
Definitions of success in academia have tended to focus on professional accomplishments such as publications and external funding and have largely ignored familial contributions to life satisfaction and notions of “achievement.” As the academic institution continues to be male dominated, the voices of women who must learn to negotiate multiple roles has been silenced and rarely infused in our educational settings. This conversation hour focuses on managing multiple roles (as mother, professor, etc) before and during the tenure process. Attention is paid to ideological (what are the engrained power structures of academia in terms of gender?), psychological (use of social support networks, developing positive relationships), and logistical (timelines, addressing numerous simultaneous responsibilities) issues. Particular attention is paid to understanding systemic forces contributing to relational tensions and expected gender expectations.
The conversation hour will combine relevant theory and the limited research available on multiple roles among women (e.g. Juliao, 2004) with practical suggestions and discussion of personal experiences. Although there is not one answer for how to manage various obligations, women must have a space to discuss balancing academic life with relational responsibilities. At present, many women feel the pressure to choose one lifestyle over the other (e.g. tenure or having a family). This conflict is grounded in the patriarchal history under girding the educational ranking structures. Our goal is to not find answers, but to discuss options and share stories. The idea of “family life” will be discussed from multiple lenses and lifestyles.
(4) Having a Child Post Tenure
Looking at my professional resume, one could conclude that my academic trajectory has been planful, strategic, and linear. I began as an assistant professor, then moved up the ranks and became tenured at a research university. What is not as evident from the resume is that I got pregnant the year that I went up for tenure. Research on the maternal experiences of women professors has shown the complex tensions involved in having children in the midst of an academic career (Armenti, 2004). Linking research findings with my personal experiences, I will be addressing the following concerns:
- Research productivity (Fox, 1995): From the moment my daughter was born, my priorities as a faculty member changed. I no longer do late nights at the office. I hesitate to travel to conferences knowing that I will have to leave her behind. My productivity as a researcher is completely different post-partum and post-tenure.
- Work/Family conflict (Grant et. al, 2000): I have internal struggles regarding whether to pursue important career opportunities that will pull me away from my family. I am constantly asking for extensions because something came up and I don’t finish my work on time.
- Perspective on work (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004): I question the meaningfulness of my work. Will it make a difference in my daughter’s life? What will she think of the work that I have done? The birth of my daughter has had a major impact on my priorities and my ideas about the meaning of academic work. I have postponed particular milestones in my career (e.g., applying for full-professorship) since I have not made as many major strides academically as I did earlier in my career. Having a child post-tenure has both benefits and drawbacks that I will discuss in this open forum.
Exploring Cultural Identities in Graduate Training
APAGS Suite
10:00–10:50am
Presenters:
Francis C. Shen, MA, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (Chair)
Lan-Sze Pang, MA, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
Rebecca Eldredge, PhD, University of Houston
Vinetha Belur, MA, Southern Illinois University- Carbondale
Description:
American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) serves as an important foundation for the field in protecting public welfare and ensuring the provision of quality care (Fisher, 2003). With the ever-increasing diversity in the United States, it has become an ethical obligation for psychologists to be multiculturally-sensitive in working with this diverse population. Principle E of the Ethics Code attempts to address this by stipulating that “psychologists [be] aware of and respect cultural, individual, and role differences” (p. 4). However, in respecting various areas of diversity, difficulties may arise when certain areas are perceived as conflicting with others, or when there are differing cultural values on what is considered ethical conduct. For example, how does one respect homosexuality and anti-gay religious beliefs? Or how does one respect patriarchal cultural values and feminism? These conflicts may not only present itself in clinical work, but may also need to be addressed in the personal and professional development of graduate trainees. This is especially the case when graduate students hold personal/cultural values and beliefs that conflict with APA’s ethical standards.
Given its sensitive nature, resolving these conflicts may be particularly confusing and challenging for graduate students. However, if our field aspires to continue offering multiculturally-sensitive graduate training, it is important to work towards its resolution. Therefore, this symposium will explore conflicting issues of diversity that may surface in graduate training, such as affirming both religion/spirituality and LGBT populations, integrating feminist and traditional cultural values, and examining cultural challenges in the professional development of international students. Presenters will examine the impact that these conflicting diversity issues may have on graduate students’ professional development, and the challenges they may encounter in resolving these issues. Recommendations for how students can work towards resolving these conflicts will also be provided.
(1) Cultural Challenges for International Trainees in Professional Development
Over the last decade, there have been a vast amount of literature on the importance of providing
culture-sensitive counseling services to diverse clients (Ponterotto, Casas, Suzuki, & Alexander, 2001; Sue & Sue, 2003). However, there has been a lack of attention on culture-sensitive approaches to the clinical training of diverse student trainees in general and with international trainees in particular. Given that APA ethical standards were developed from U.S. perspectives of professionalism, international students from different cultural backgrounds often encounter unique challenges in negotiating their desire to uphold the APA ethical principles, while at the same time being culturally sensitive to their client’s needs and maintaining their own cultural identity.
This presentation will discuss some of the struggles that international clinical and counseling psychology trainees face in the development of professionalism, particularly on the role that culture plays in the ethical issues in the areas of practice and supervision. First, presenters will provide personal examples on how their cultural values may come into conflict when dealing with boundary issues, such as gift-giving, personal space, and dual relationships. For example, for international trainees who are active in a small international student community may struggle with avoiding dual relationships with international student clients. Next, ethical dilemmas they have confronted in supervision regarding self-disclosure, the supervisory relationship, and case conceptualization will also be discussed. For example, international students coming from a vertical collectivistic culture may be evaluated as resistant and/or incompetent when asked to self-disclose to their supervisors, who may lack the sensitivity in understanding the discomfort of sharing personal information with people in positions of authority. Finally, recommendations will be provided for international graduate trainees on how to advocate for culturally sensitive components in their ethical decision making within their graduate student programs.
(2) Exploring the Complexity of Affirming Both Religious/Spiritual and LGBT Diversities
This presentation addresses the many ethical dilemmas that may arise in affirming diversity of both religion/spirituality and sexual orientation. These issues are highly sensitive and emotionally charged on both personal and systemic levels, particularly in the recent political and social climate. The many ways in which these two aspects of diversity intersect and intertwine further adds to its complexity. Since these are issues that people in general may have already formed ideas and identities based on previous experiences, it may be particularly difficult for graduate students who enter an environment in which they may need to explore and renegotiate these aspects of their personal, familial, and cultural beliefs with respect to APA’s ethical norms and standards. Integrate these personal identities, values, and beliefs into professional identities and navigating complex ethical dilemmas to affirm the importance of both religious and sexual diversity can therefore be particularly challenging.
Due to the significance and complexity of addressing this issue, it is essential to provide graduate students with support, encouragement, guidance, and resources for exploring how to address this issue at both a personal and professional level. First, a range of clinical and professional examples will be shared to illustrate the complexity of upholding the professional aspirations of cultural competency in relation to religious and sexual diversity, such as working with clients who voice opinions against LGBT populations in session based upon their religious convictions, working with religious gay clients, or dealing with reactions and assumptions of others when a graduate student self-identifies as religious. Recommendations for graduate students in managing such dilemmas will be provided, such as increasing self-awareness to identify and manage personal biases, maintaining integrity by practicing within one’s areas of competency, engaging with the literature, providing informed consent with clients, and utilizing available resources (e.g. supervision, consultation, ethical decision-making methods).
(3) How to Negotiate Feminist and Cultural Values in Graduate School
Ethnic minority females in counseling and clinical graduate training programs who hold the perception that feminism is at odds with their cultural values may experience complex emotional struggles during their graduate training (Espin, 2005). Examples of these emotional struggles include disempowerment, hyper-vigilance, guilt, and anger. While not all of these struggles apply to each and every ethnic minority female in psychology graduate training programs, it may also be likely that most female ethnic minority psychology graduate students will have experienced at least one of these emotional struggles during their graduate school career. Because we believe there to be a high occurrence rate of these types of emotional struggles as a result of the “feminism versus culture” conflict amongst ethnic minority women in graduate school, this presentation will describe ways to merge feminism with cultural values, thereby lessening these struggles.
This presentation will first describe the emotional struggles in detail, and then discuss the types of settings and/or situations in which they may appear within a psychology graduate training program. As an example, our own experiences as two Asian Indian female graduate students in a counseling psychology program who struggled to integrate our feminist and cultural selves on both personal and professional levels will be shared. We will go back and target what we believe is the root cause of these struggles, which is the perception – or misperception – that feminism is at odds with, or mutually independent of, cultural values. The forces that contribute to the maintenance of the perceived conflict between feminism and culture and also how the maintenance of this perception may differ amongst ethnic minority women will be examined. Finally, ways to integrate feminist and cultural identities will be explored and recommendations will be provided for graduate students.
Ethics Paper Prize
APAGS Suite
11:00–11:50am
Presenters:
Stephen Behnke, PhD, Director, APA Ethics Office (Chair)
Carol Williams-Nickelson, PsyD, Associate Executive Director, APAGS (Co-Chair)
Description:
Come join us for this presentation on psychology and ethics from the 2007 winner of the Graduate Student Ethics Prize. All APAGS members are invited to attend.
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