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  • ABCs and PhDs: Coming back for a Ph.D.

    By Dana Campbell March 25, 2009 8:07 am

    Earlier this week I came across this old Time magazine article, which reminded me of an interesting character, Dr. Theo Colborn.

    Theodora Colborn (born in 1927) got her undergraduate degree in pharmacy from Rutgers University in 1947. Soon after, she married and had four children. For the next three decades, while raising the children, she and her husband owned and managed several drugstores: first in New Jersey, then 15 years later, after deciding urban life was too hectic the family moved to rural Colorado where they also kept a sheep farm.

    When she was 51 and her youngest child 18, Colborn returned to school and completed her a master’s degree in fresh water ecology from Western State College of Colorado in 1981. Her husband died in 1983, and she continued on her academic path to earn a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985.

    With her degree, which she says changed her in the eyes of the public from a do-gooder “little old lady in tennis shoes” puttering along in environmental causes to a credentialed scientist, Dr. Colborn’s career took off. She became a prominent environmentalist who pioneered research on and subsequently promoted the theory that certain ubiquitous man-made chemicals have a serious impact on human health and especially when fetuses and newborns are exposed) and cause huge environmental damage. Holding a long list of prestigious accolades, titles and publications, Colborn (82 this year) is now professor emeritus at the University of Florida and president of the company (TEDX) she founded to disseminate research findings on endocrine disruption.

    Colborn’s path is non-traditional, to say the least. I admire it for it’s natural progression. Colborn’s undergraduate pharmacy background, her family, her life-long interest in birds and in water, her experience with pollution in the streams near their Colorado sheep farm clearly contributed to her new career - still going strong after several decades - as scientist/environmentalist/academic. It’s worth thinking about mothers like Colborn who do things a little differently – stretch the system in different ways. I know very few stories of parents going back to get their Ph.D.s later in life after their families have grown up, but they are out there, and I’d love to learn more about them - do you know any to share? I’m sure there are even some stories of Ph.D. parents who managed to return to academic careers after leaving to raise children, although returning after this gap appears to be even less common than having the late-start but recent training.

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Comments on ABCs and PhDs: Coming back for a Ph.D.

  • The Second Lady
  • Posted by Candice on March 25, 2009 at 1:30pm EDT

  • Jill Biden completed her EdD at age 55.

  • I'll be one someday!
  • Posted by TW on March 29, 2009 at 7:15pm EDT

  • My kids are small (10, 7, and 2) and I'll have my master's degree in a few months (in K-12 teaching). When the little one is 18 or so, I'll probably be getting busy on a doctorate. I'll be around 54. Wish me luck!

  • Trying to get that PhD
  • Posted by zoe , adjunct at different institutions on April 1, 2009 at 9:15am EDT

  • I am fity five years old, my third daughter (19) is off to college, has been teaching management courses whenever i had a chance while raising my three daughters, my husband was working overseas, and my chances to pursue the Ph D where slim. But i never give up, i am applying to different programs and hope one day obtain the PhD. I think it is a normal path for women, since they have to make and raise children it seems to be better to postpone the PhD to later years. The eduacation system, or path, has been designed by men for men, it is time to rethink the whole process.

  • The Concurrent Track
  • Posted by Kalynne Pudner , Visiting Asst Prof, Philosophy at Auburn University on April 1, 2009 at 11:45am EDT

  • Thanks for the opportunity to reflect upon this long, strange trip.

    I showed up for grad school 5 months married and 4 months pregnant; earned my M.A. 6 months pregnant with Number Two; took my comps when Number Three was 3 months old; finally got the dissertation proposal finished when I had Number Six (the eldest being eight). Had twins, homeschooled all their siblings, finished and defended the dissertation, finally earning my Ph.D. twelve years, six moves and eight kids after starting. My secret? A dissertation director -- himself a father of five -- with supererogatory patience and superb advocacy power.

    I continued as Homeschooling Mom, Ph.D., until my husband took a job in a neighboring state, and we found ourselves looking to move to a college town, where my husband (a political consultant by trade) arranged a meeting with a few members of the philosophy department. JUST SO HAPPENS that shortly after this, one of their instructors left abruptly between semesters, and I was asked whether I could take over his classes. So here I am.

    And here, it appears, I shall stay. Doctorate after full-time mothering, sure. Teaching job after full-time mothering, with a bit of fantastic luck. But tenure? I've yet to hear of even one.

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