Sarah Mead
Staff Writer
Murray State will host a “When to Say Yes and How to Say No” workshop on Friday, Feb. 28, for female faculty.
The workshop will provide guidance for female professors on the appropriate responses when determining priorities between workplace responsibilities, tenure expectations, a myriad of service requests and personal home life.
Made possible by the University’s ADVANCE leadership team, the event is a part of a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to promote strategic equity initiatives for female faculty members. Maeve McCarthy, interim assistant dean for Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology, is the director of Murray State’s ADVANCE program.
“ADVANCE is a program designed to improve the recruitment and retention of women faculty and staff,” McCarthy said. “Women are historically underrepresented in science, engineering and math. When students look to see role models in their field and they see that there are one or two women in the department that teaches their major, then it’s not as encouraging as when there’s better representation. What we want to do is recruit and retain more women faculty so that they can serve as role models for our students.”
The keynote speaker, Eve Riskin, is the associate dean of diversity and access in the College of Engineering and faculty director of ADVANCE at the University of Washington. Riskin has been a faculty director for ADVANCE since 2002 when the University of Washington first began its program. Her interest in the program began because she found it hard to balance both her home life and her position as a professor.
At the workshop, Riskin will share her reflections and experiences on prioritizing requests.
“The topic of saying yes [or] no is important because I see women being asked to do things that aren’t fair,” Riskin said. “The academy can expect them to ‘be good sports’ even if it’s not good for their careers.”
McCarthy said in addition to their responsibilities as a professor, female faculty are asked to take on additional roles more often than their male counterparts.
“They get asked to do the same amount of teaching [and] the same amount of research, [but they get asked to do] more service,” McCarthy said. “Where this service comes in is in advising students, advising student groups, committee work, selecting textbooks and all these kinds of things that are part of being an academic. Women find that they are asked more often [to take these responsibilities] and find it hard to say no.”
Laura Sullivan-Beckers is a biology professor and has been active in the ADVANCE program for three years. She said she found this issue important because she often feels that her personality makes it nearly impossible to say no when people ask for her help or input.
“It’s a common issue that doesn’t just affect faculty,” Sullivan-Beckers said. “I think what this workshop is going to be about is helping faculty figure out how to navigate the issues in balancing the different components of the job. As faculty, we’re expected to teach, do research and also contribute service to the school. Trying to balance those things [with your home life] can be very hard.”
Alyx Shultz, department head of Agricultural Science, said being a woman in a STEM field is both a challenge and an opportunity. While it can be hard to find balance between various responsibilities, these additional opportunities show the potential for women in the field is forever broadening.
“It’s both a challenge and a phenomenal opportunity because we have so many directions that we can go,” Shultz said. “It’s for sure a challenge to learn where you’re going to balance and where you’re going to prioritize, but it’s also an open door in that no matter what you’re good at as a faculty member, there’s something that you can get plugged into that will help students.”
Defining the line of when to accept or decline additional responsibility can be hard, and this workshop was designed to make that process clearer.
“I’ve heard people say yes to requests that were ridiculous or even offensive, so I like to give people permission to say no.” Riskin said. “Conversely, I have heard people say no when they should have said yes. Depending on who the request is coming from, it can be career-limiting.”
The workshop will include tactics in how to say no to tasks that overextended a person’s capabilities, especially in the event of being asked to take on additional responsibilities by a supervisor.
“If you’re being asked by your superior to do something that’s related to your job, your position about saying no is somewhat tenuous,” McCarthy said. “It’s difficult to know what you can say no to and what you can’t. If you say yes to everything, you end up overextended and then you’re not doing as good of a job overall.”
Shultz said while prioritization is hard, most people are understanding of the limits she sets on her time.
“It’s hard, but I think that [over the] years you lean toward things that you’re automatically strong at,” Shultz said. “You’ve just got to be real with yourself, and if you don’t have time, you don’t have time. Every time I’ve said no, people have understood. It’s often harder on the person saying no than it is on the student or administrator asking. You’ve just got to draw your line and not cross it.”
Sullivan-Beckers said she felt this topic was especially important for retaining new faculty at the University. She said young professors are trying to get their name out around campus and to become a valued member of the community as they search for tenure and promotions. However, it is very easy for new faculty to get overwhelmed with responsibility, which she said is unfortunate because having female role models is important to encouraging students to stay in STEM fields.
“It is useful to know that she’s going through what I’m going through, and if she can do it I can do it,” Sullivan-Beckers said. “Having those role models and knowing that other women have survived and stayed in [the industry] is motivating. It’s encouraging to see women advancing, especially in the biology department [because] we have a lot of senior female faculty.”
The “When to Say Yes and How to Say No” workshop will serve as an opportunity for female faculty to congregate together to discuss this issue and others that they face on campus.
“There’s a lot of open dialogue and I think that’s so important,” Shultz said. “Awareness is 85 percent of the battle and from awareness we can take steps of action to get a system in place that lends itself to this [problem]. There are definitely some leaders pushing for this right now and the conversation is so important.”
