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Photo by Reed Hutchinson |
Professor Andrea Ghez takes son Evan, 5 months, to daycare. |
UC helps faculty balance work, family
BY Anne burke
Today Staff Writer
After having her first child 4 1/2 years ago, Andrea Ghez, a professor of physics and astronomy, got one quarter off from teaching. It wasn’t enough.
“After three months the baby is barely sleeping through the night, so you’re completely sleep-deprived,” Ghez recalled. “It takes nine months to get fully back.”
Ghez, who was tenured at the time, tapped into sabbatical leave to cobble together two more quarters away from the classroom. Liberated from her teaching duties, she had time to keep up with her research, “which was changing at a very rapid rate,” while caring for her newborn and recovering from childbirth. The time off from teaching “was what really allowed me to succeed because I was able to maintain my research program,” said Ghez, who has since had a second child.
Juggling a UC academic career and family life is tough, especially for moms and dads racing against a tenure clock. But the UC is now a friendlier workplace for ladder-rank faculty, thanks to a major reform of family-accommodation policies.
Birth mothers are now entitled to two terms of teaching relief instead of one. Family caregivers may apply for part-time academic appointments. And stopping the tenure clock to care for new children is treated as an entitlement, rather than a privilege.
“All these changes make it clear that family accommodation is fundamental to an equitable and productive environment,” said Marc Goulden, co-manager of the UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge.
Adrienne Lavine, chair of the UCLA Academic Senate, said the faculty are enthusiastic about the policy overhaul. The changes “position us at the cutting edge of policies that support faculty productivity and a balance between work and the rest of our lives,” she said. “It gives us a competitive edge, and I hope that we use them as a selling point when we try to recruit people.”
Making it easier for faculty to stop the tenure clock “is really an important change,” Lavine continued. “I hear lots of people say, ‘You know, I just didn’t think it would look good if I said I need to stop my tenure clock because I’m having a child or adopting a child. People will perceive it as a weakness.’
“This turns it around and says, ‘We presume anyone who has care of an infant will get an additional year for tenure,’ ” Lavine said. New policies make it clear that faculty who take advantage of time off won’t be penalized in the tenure process.
Policy changes culminate a two-year effort to make the UC a more hospitable environment for faculty parents, especially women. Data collected by Angelica Stacy, the UC’s associate vice provost for faculty equity, show that women Ph.D.s under-apply for ladder-rank faculty positions. Of those women who do secure tenure-track jobs, a disproportionately high number do not advance to the next professional level. Many cite the difficulties of achieving a work-family balance.
The policy revisions come at an opportune time as the UC prepares to embark on a major hiring spree. In the next 10 years, the system expects to hire on average more than 500 tenure-track faculty annually to replace retirees.
The revised policies can be found at: www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/apm/welcome. Also available online is “UC Families,” a newsletter with tips for faculty, staff and students struggling to balance work and family life. Subscribers to the newsletter can learn about campus-specific family resources, post questions and engage in discussions. To subscribe, visit http://parents.berkeley.edu/ucfamilies.
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