Academic Women is a service organization that supports women and nonbinary members of the Faculty Association at Simon Fraser University. We advocate for the career development, advancement, and wellness of our colleagues and aim to offer a collegial network and community resources to support each other through the specific challenges we face as women and nonbinary people in the academic workplace.

Current board members:

• Amanda Watson (President)
• Bertille Antoine (Treasurer)
• Susan Erikson (Member at Large)
• Maite Taboada (Member at Large)
• Katrina Honigs (Member at Large)
• Rochelle Tucker (Member at Large)

Join Academic Women!

Please check our Community Communication Code, and if you would like to join the Academic Women mailing list, please email aw-board@sfu.ca and ask to be added to the mail list.

In 2019 we undertook a comprehensive study at Simon Fraser University on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion (our report will be out July 2020). One of the things that emerged from that study is that women, in general, are asked to take on a disproportionate amount of service work. And they accept because they also have a hard time saying no. This particulalarly true of Indigenous, Black, and women of colour who provide essential support to marginalized students, and who are constantly called upon to serve on various committees. To support women in resisting the constant pressure to work more than our fair share, we held a workshop and out of that workshop came this video, which we called "Reclaiming My Time." We could have called it "Lean Out."

Interestingly, the whole idea of encouraging women to say "no" to requests for us to do more than is reasonable and fair caused a kind of backlash among some members. Speaking for myself, I think this speaks to just how deeply embedded our role as 'helpers' is in our gendered identities. What do you think?

-El Chenier