Women's Caucus Pushes Academia to Address Work–Family Issues

Center for Cultural Judaism grant enables full professional childcare at AJS Convention

WASHINGTON DC, December 18, 2005 — As part of its ongoing effort to help women succeed in leadership positions, The AJS Women’s Caucus in cooperation with the Parents Childcare Co-op, has announced that they received a grant from the Center for Cultural Judaism to support professional childcare at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies next week, and that a session will address the specific challenge professors face in raising children.

“This is a significant step for the organization in providing support to both women and men who are trying to raise families as they work towards tenure, finish their PhDs, or struggle to find employment in the increasingly competitive world of higher education,” said Miriam Peskowitz, author of The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars and co-chair of the AJSWC.

According to Ann Higginbotham, the newly elected Chair of the American Association of University Professors Committee on Women in the Academic Profession, “No modern workplace should require employees to abandon the possibility of families and children to keep their jobs. Professional associations can help lead this fight by making their meetings family friendly and by spreading the word about best practices in work/family policies.”

The childcare initiative is made possible by a generous grant from The Center for Cultural Judaism, whose executive director, Myrna Baron, has long advocated gender equality. “We are committed to supporting professors and their institutions in order to broaden the academic resources available for secular and cultural Jews,” she said. “We believe that equality is part of secularization, and as part of our commitment we want to support scholars who are parents, so they can work and study equally.

“Secularization, we believe, is the greatest achievement of the modern world,” she continued. “Historically, it emancipated Jews and made them full citizens. It enables modern Jews to live full lives as part of the society in which we reside. We can choose which colleges to attend, what careers to pursue, whom and whether to marry. If we choose to have children, we need the support of our society - in order to take advantage of all that it has to offer.”

In an effort to place the childcare initiative within a broader context, the AJSWC will also host a breakfast meeting on Monday, December 19 featuring a presentation by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) titled Faculties Have Families Too. “This presentation will focus on some of those best practices and suggest ways that women can begin discussion on their own campuses,” said Higginbotham, who will lead the presentation. The presentation will highlight the AAUP's recent advocacy work in this area, stimulate discussion of work-family issues, and recognize campus best practices for good work/family initiatives in recruiting and retaining women faculty.

While childcare has been available for previous conferences, this is the first time it will be fully underwritten. The Center for Cultural Judaism’s grant enabled AJSWC to contract with San Diego based KiddieCorp to provide full-time, professional, bonded care for children of AJS members on site at the conference hotel.

A report published in January 2005 by Mayan: The Jewish Women’s Project showed that Jewish institutions are lagging behind in making the kinds of systemic workplace changes that enable women to succeed in leadership positions. “Despite the rhetoric of being family centered, Jewish organizations promote a workaholic culture that runs counter to a healthy work/life balance and particularly affects mothers, who continue to be most responsible for childcare and household tasks.” (Listen to Her Voice: The Ma’ayan Report).

The Association for Jewish Studies Women’s Caucus is taking steps to reverse this trend so that Jewish studies professors and graduate students should not have to choose between being parents and professionals. It will strive to create change within the culture of its parent organization, the Association for Jewish Studies, a learned society founded in 1969 to promote endeavors in Jewish studies at the university level, which has both Jewish and non Jewish members. AJS presently has women in each of its leadership positions.

“I hadn’t attended AJS in seven years because they didn’t have childcare for my now seven year old daughter,” said Dr. Anita Norich, Professor of Yiddish literature at the University of Michigan. “Now, I can attend.”

The annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies will take place December 18-20, 2005 at the Washington Hilton and Towers in Washington DC. The children’s program will be run by KiddieCorp, an organization specializing in on-site childcare for professional conferences. Parents Childcare Co-op is an independent initiative and is not sponsored by nor affiliated with the Association for Jewish Studies. The Association for Jewish Studies assumes no liability for use of these services.

For more information on the child care program, visit
www.kiddiecorp.com/ajskids.htm
More information about the Center for Cultural Judaism is available at
www.culturaljudaism.org
More information about the Association for Jewish Studies is available at
www.brandeis.edu/ajs
More information about KiddieCorp is available at
www.kiddiecorp.com
Mayan’s report, Listen to Her Voice can be accessed at
www.mayan.org/category.aspx?catid=1013

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