Courtney Meyet poses with her husband Brian and her sons, Kiehl and Shane. Courtesy︱Courtney Meyet

When Courtney Meyet started to pursue her doctorate in chemistry, she already had another full-time job: motherhood.

Now an associate professor of chemistry at the college, Meyet had two boys aged eight and 10 – and a 60-to-80-hour work week in the lab. Yet she refused to choose between her love of learning and love of family. With the help of her husband, Meyet published research and advanced her academic career, while never missing her sons’ Boy Scout meetings.

“Everything they did, I was there for that,” Meyet said.  

Almost half of new mothers leave full-time employment in science, technology, engineering, or math after having their first child, according to a 2019 study. Yet according to Meyet and two other Hillsdale professors — Professor of Chemistry Lee Baron and Assistant Professor of Physics Stephanie Lauback — that doesn’t have to be the case.

Baron pursued a doctorate in chemistry after falling in love with research in the lab. She even fell in love inside the lab, meeting her future husband in organic chemistry.

Meyet said she did not love chemistry during her undergraduate years, so much that she majored in animal science to avoid taking organic chemistry. But when she returned to undergraduate school for a nursing degree, she discovered a fascination with the subject. 

“I found that not only was I good at it, I really loved it,” Meyet said. “I thought this is the most fascinating science I’ve ever dealt with. You know the ins and outs of molecular biology and how living systems function at the molecular level.”

When she missed the deadline for the nursing program, Meyet shifted her interest to pursue a degree and eventually a doctorate in chemistry with a focus in small molecule synthesis.

Similarly to Meyet, Lauback didn’t discover her love for physics right away. 

“When I took physics initially, I didn’t really like it because it didn’t click immediately, and it probably took at least half a year before it finally started to,” Lauback said. “Once I understood it and how well it could explain our worlds, I became very fascinated with it.”

But pursuing academic careers in science came with its difficulties. Each woman said she relied on her spouse and community to balance the demands of motherhood with her professional calling. 

Meyet’s values often conflicted with the principal investigator in charge of her lab, who did not understand her desire to spend time with her family and expected her to work six days a week. She worked late on Fridays in order to have her weekends off. 

“I would get there at 6 a.m. and I would work through the night,” Meyet said. 

During this difficult time, Meyet said she relied on her husband to care for her children, who had a more flexible schedule because he taught night classes in education.

 “I was really fortunate to have my husband, Brian, who would care for the boys,” she said. 

But throughout her Ph.D. pursuit, she said she refused to let her research take away from watching her boys grow up. 

“I made a point I would not miss a single function of those boys,” Meyet said. 

Baron gave birth to her first child shortly before her dissertation defense. Then she received a teaching position at a large university, but it did not accommodate well for a mother. 

“I loved science,” Baron said. “I was where I was supposed to be, but there was no such thing as flex schedules or job-sharing.”

Balancing work and home life with one child was straightforward with accessible daycares, but when she had her second child, the dynamic changed. 

“You can’t easily find someone to watch two children when one of them is sick and they can’t be in any kind of daycare,” Baron said. 

The lack of accommodations pushed her to find a job at a smaller institution, leading her to a position teaching general chemistry at Hillsdale College. 

“Here it’s wonderful for a family,” Baron said. “My children would come up after school or preschool and they would be in my office and a student would enrich their lives.” 

The small-town environment helped Baron pour into both her kids and her students. 

“People in a small town can help out,” she said. 

Lauback said she works every day to balance teaching at Hillsdale with her one-year-old son, Caleb. 

“There are two tears on my heart,” Lauback said. “I want to be home with him and see all the different things. But I also really just love what I’m doing here, and so it seems that it is still the place for me.”

Time management has been difficult for her at times, she said.

“Caleb didn’t start teaching sleeping through the night until after he was 1 year old,” Lauback said. “So my students were complaining about being there at eight in the morning, but I was up two or three times in the night feeding the baby.”

Lauback attributes her ability to be both a mom and a scientist to her husband, David, who can take care of Caleb while she works or attends physics conferences.

Meyet said she has seen how her perseverance and dedication to education has influenced her children. 

“I’m a role model for them,” Meyet said. “Both of these boys are so driven, and I think a lot of that comes from seeing their mother working hard through school and being successful and coming out with that terminal degree.”

Baron said she balanced her home and family life by ensuring that her children understood her love for them and her calling to academic teaching.

“I always felt that it was really important that it wasn’t just a job, that they knew what I did and they knew why I did it. And they were here enough to understand that.”

Lauback said she adores enriching both her child’s life and students’ lives.

“I love teaching and working with college-aged students,” Lauback said. “I would miss that so much if I was just at home the whole time.” 

Lauback said she thinks research and having a family are becoming more compatible. 

“If you see that you have a calling in a certain area of science and you feel like that’s where you can be, you can definitely have a family. I think our workplaces are becoming more and more supportive of that right,” Lauback said.

If a mother pursues a career, it should be in a place God wants them, Baron said. 

“It better be discerned to be the thing that you would be willing to leave your children for a little bit, because you miss your kids like nobody’s business,” she said.

Though pursuing a science career and having a family can be difficult, Meyet, Baron, and Lauback said they have found joy in sharing their passions with both students and their children.

“I think that’s one of the biggest questions that we have with women at Hillsdale College,” Meyet said. “After college, if I get married, do I pursue a career or do I pursue a family? And the answer is yes,” she said. “Having a family is rewarding and you’ll make it happen.”