Faculty Parent Support

Articles for Faculty with Small Children

Here are a list of articles that faculty with small children might find supportive.

The Guardian's Mummy would Prefer You Not to do That. How no became a Dirty Word in Parenting by Nell Frizzell
The New York Time's Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better by Surgeon General and Vice Admiral of Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Vivek H. Murthy.

Doing It All When Your Children Are Small: A Support Group for Faculty Parents

Attention, faculty parents! The demands of parenthood can be overwhelming and the pandemic has only intensified these challenges. Faculty parents are not only teaching courses, trying to write and conduct research, but also caring for and schooling their children. Do you sometimes feel as though you’ll never sleep again, let alone have a clear intellectual thought? Does publishing seem like a pipe dream? You are not alone.

In Fall 2024, we will host three drop-in Zoom support group meetings at various days to accommodate faculty parent schedules. Meet and connect with other faculty as we share ideas and strategies for engaging in research and writing while parenting. Please feel free to join these web meetings at any time between 12-1pm and for as little or as long as you like. The meetings are open to UC Davis and UC Irvine faculty parents.

All parents are welcome, as are their children!

Fall 2024 Schedule

Wednesday, October 16, 12-1pm - Managing and Understanding Power Struggles

Power struggles can occur all throughout early childhood. It can manifest in a number of ways including brushing teeth, eating, dressing and expressing demands. Parenting coach Ms. Rosenthal will discuss ways to deepen your understanding of what your child may be communicating when engaging in these behaviors. After a brief introduction about how to better understand this behavior as communication, Ms. Rosenthal would like to hear about your specific struggles and experiences so as to help parents develop tools with which to move forward. This is a great opportunity to learn from and support one another as parents. Ms. Rosenthal’s session last Spring 2024 was greatly appreciated by those who attended.
Ms. Jill Rosenthal, MSW, Parenting Coach
Monday, November 18, 12-1pm - This is How We Do It: Strategies to Find Time to Write While Parenting (Without Feeling Guilty)

Having a baby, toddler or young child can consume one’s time just about 24/7. However, the academic clock does not stop forever and at some point, we must get back to our research and writing. Especially for those on the tenure-track with a very young child, this can and does pose some serious challenges especially when childcare falls through or the child is ill. What are strategies that academic parents have found useful when confronting these demands? For those who feel guilty about being unavailable to their child because of writing pressures and deadlines, what are some strategies faculty parents have developed to deal with that guilt?
Professor Diane Wolf will survey a number of faculty parents with these questions and present the results after which participants can share their questions, thoughts and their own strategies.

The convener of the Faculty Parent Support Group, Professor Emerita Diane Wolf, is also available for one-on-one confidential consultations to fit your schedule, including faculty parent of all school-age children. Please contact her directly via email at dlwolf@ucdavis.edu.

For additional information and all other inquiries, please contact Diane Wolf, dlwolf@ucdavis.edu, or Brad Horton, Program Coordinator for Faculty Relations and Development, bhorton@ucdavis.edu.