“(Re)Producing (E)Motions: Motherhood, Academic Spaces, and Neoliberal Times”

by Alexandria Hanson, Alejandra I. Ramírez, April M. Cobos, Heather Listhartke, & Skye Roberson | Xchanges 15.1, Spring 2020

Actionable Task List

Connected to the retention of single-mother graduate students in Rhet-Comp are practices and means of support that facilitate our work in the field. While we have received comments from colleagues, faculty, and mentors that cause us to take pause and consider how we fit in higher education, we have also experienced moments of encouragement, as well as the implementation of programs and activities that create a more welcoming, supportive environment for single mothers in academia. Other important factors like changing technologies have allowed for single mothers to successfully complete graduate programs in recent years. From our own experiences with these changes and the positive impacts they have had on our abilities to succeed as Rhet-Comp graduate students, we consider actions that have been or could be taken by people in power to better support single-mother graduate students. Like Fischer, Rosche, and McCool (2020), we call on those in positions of power to advocate, interrupt, and resist as a way to create institutional change. We offer the list below as a starting point for creating family-friendly environments in Rhet-Comp at the departmental, programmatic, and institutional level that give consideration to a range of familial structures. We end with this list as a way to begin and create space for greater conversations about actions that can be taken to resist neoliberal ideologies in higher education while also working towards greater inclusivity:

• Offer flexible teaching schedules that account for when we need to teach (allow later and/or earlier courses)
• Cap writing courses taught by graduate teaching assistants to make grading manageable (<20 students)
• Develop departmental policies or resources that allow for alternative methods of grading like video and audio comments
• Allow the option for student writing conferences to take place via video chat
• Offer online teaching and/or course releases for a more flexible schedule with priority given to single moms
• Support research that considers the experiences of single mothers in higher education in Rhet-Comp publications, conferences, and graduate student research projects
• Utilize “distant student” or telecommuting. Provide the options to video chat into meetings or coursework, including conversations with dissertation chairs and committee members or professional development sessions (Sallee, 2016)
• Schedule courses and extracurriculars during business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
• Provide institutional support for childcare. For example, Michigan State University offers childcare for $225 a semester; Syracuse University offers a childcare subsidy for $1,000 up to two children under the age of 6; other schools like UW Tacoma, University of Pennsylvania, and UC Berkeley offer childcare subsidies of varying amounts
• Offer optional health insurance coverage for dependents that can be paid through stipends and/or aid disbursements
• Provide living-wage stipends including consistent funding for summer
• Offer fellowships and course releases that give priority to underrepresented populations, especially single mothers
• Consider displaying artwork from children and/or having family photos in your office
• Create family-friendly events for graduate students to help better integrate them into the community (Sallee, 2016)
• Have clearly articulated syllabi policies that give consideration to student caregivers
• Ensure that department and program chairs are knowledgeable about resources for parents at their respective institutions