Chapter 9: Running Against the Clock: Staying Present on the Road to Tenure

Finding and maintaining balance in life is a constant struggle lor most people. While it is possible to live fulfilling professional and personal lives, if we are unable to strike a balance between the two we can find ourselves in unwanted and unhealthy situations. This is particularly true in universities as the lines between work and life are often blurred. On the surface, the organizational culture of academic institutions provides higher levels of autonomy and freedom as compared to other sectors of the workforce, making it seem like the ideal profession for work-life balance to exist (Bailyn, 2003 as cited in Gatta & Roos, 2004). However, the flexibility present within academic institutions, coupled with the demands of promotions and tenure, can actually make establishing and maintaining work-life balance more difficult (Gatta & Roos, 2004). Thus, as scholars who wish to find a work-life balance, we must be able to wrestle with and identify what we value in life and align ourselves professionally to what we personally believe to be of importance. We need to reframe the work-life balance conversation into one that views both work and life positively, transcending the current discourse on work-life balance to include a new language that allows each of us individually the ability to privilege our own values and participate in our own lives accordingly (Caproni, 2004).