Monitoring Dept. Health and Welfare
Valuing Diversity in the Dept.
Supporting Pre-Tenure Faculty Career Development
Encouraging Mid-Career Professional Development
Faculty Development Programs, Benefits, & Resources
FLEXIBLE AND ACCOMMODATING POLICIES AND PRACTICES
The University of Washington is committed to supporting the work-life balance of its faculty and received a 2006 Alfred P. Sloan award for Faculty Career Flexibility. The UW has developed several policies and practices which department chairs will find useful for faculty productivity and retention. Described below are several key policies and practices.
The Academic Human Resources website also contains information on other UW policies and programs that assist with work-life balance, including other leave policies, eldercare, and childcare visit. Additional information about childcare and eldercare options is discussed at the Work/Life website. Also, as part of the 2006 Alfred P. Sloan award for Faculty Career Flexibility, the UW created Balance@UW, a comprehensive package of policies and programs designed to support UW faculty in balancing productive academic careers with satisfying personal lives.
DUAL CAREER PARTNERS
FAMILY LEAVE AND TENURE CLOCK EXTENSIONS
FAMILY LEAVE BEST PRACTICES
ADVANCE'S TRANSITIONAL SUPPORT PROGRAM
DUAL CAREER PARTNERS:
The number of dual career partners has increased substantially and is often a critical component to the hiring process. A dual career hire situation is one in which one partner has received an offer (or perhaps has made the short-list) at the institution and a suitable career opportunity must be found for the other partner. Dual career situations can be excellent retention opportunities as people may appreciate a university's responsiveness to the needs of a dual career couple (also, it is usually a challenge to find good career opportunities for both partners).
In addition to the resources listed on the University of Washington's Academic Human Resources Webpage, ADVANCE has generated recommendations for department chairs regarding dual career hires. The recommendations include strategies for dealing with some of the challenges of dual career hires.
Departments are also encouraged to include language in their job ads stating that the University of Washington has an active dual career hiring program and is responsive to the needs of its applicants. This statement encourages the applicant to not wait until the last minute to divulge that s/he has a partner who will need job placement assistance. With more time, the chances of finding a job for the partner are greatly increased.
back to top
FAMILY LEAVE AND TENURE CLOCK EXTENSION:
The UW has an official family leave and tenure clock extension policy that allows a faculty member to take a medical and/or family leave (such as leave surrounding the birth of a child). If a leave of six months or more is taken, faculty are AUTOMATICALLY ENTITLED TO NOT COUNT that year towards mandatory tenure review. The use of leave does not automatically update the faculty tenure clock. Department chairs need to submit notice through the dean to the Provost to have the tenure clock recalculated. In the case that a faculty member did not take leave or did not take enough leave to trigger an "automatic" tenure clock extension, the faculty can still request a year tenure extension ANY TIME PRIOR TO THE YEAR OF REVIEW. Again, the department chair will submit the formal request on behalf of the faculty member.
This tenure clock extension policy recognizes that faculty may be significantly distracted from their research and academic capabilities during medical or family leave. Unfortunately, many pre-tenure faculty are reluctant to use this policy, believing a bias or stigma exists. Chairs must assure faculty that the time on leave will not be unfairly evaluated. Faculty at all ranks should be educated on how to properly evaluate faculty who have taken family and/or medical leave.
Given that the tenure clock generally coincides with the biological clock, women faculty face particularly difficult timing decisions regarding this balance. To that end, departments should seek to offer supportive solutions. The best practices highlighted next could also benefit new fathers or other faculty who are experiencing major life transitions.
A one-page
handout on tenure clock extensions is available here.
back to top
FAMILY LEAVE BEST PRACTICES:
Many of these practices would hold for adoptive parents as well, and could be applied to new fathers. Often when women in SEM departments become pregnant, there is no precedent for a family leave package in their departments. Department chairs should help guide the negotiation for leave. Some examples of best family leave practices include:
- offering course release in both the quarter the baby is due (bearing in mind that older women tend to have high-risk pregnancies) and the following quarter. (At the UW, leave paid by the state is not available in the summer. Paid leave is available to women as disability leave associated with childbirth and recovery. Unpaid leave is available to men and women for the purpose of care of newly born or adopted children.)
- facilitating opportunities for the mother to continue nursing her child if she chooses
- creating funding resources which could be used to support salary, cost-share post-docs, etc.
- encouraging all faculty to be supportive (such as allowing infants to be brought to meetings and scheduling meetings not too early or late in the day to arrange for daycare drop-off and pickup)
- providing extra student teaching support for the first quarter the faculty teaches after returning from family leave
- working closely with the faculty member to determine course and committee assignments that may be more manageable during the quarter of her/his return
back to top
ADVANCE'S TRANSITIONAL SUPPORT PROGRAM:
Although a university may have excellent leave policies, certain situations may require extra steps. Departments may choose to provide a course buyout or offer graduate research assistants, travel funds, and lab supplies to a faculty member in need of additional support. These reasonably low-priced options allow faculty members to strike a balance by allowing them to be more productive at work, while attending to their personal needs.
Department chairs should also remember that the University of Washington's ADVANCE Program offers a Transitional Support Program (TSP) for tenure-track faculty. The TSP is available for outstanding science, mathematics, and engineering faculty in the midst of major life transitions, such as the birth or adoption of a child, personal medical needs, family illness, and/or caring for an elderly parent. The TSP helps faculty as they deal with the difficult challenges of balancing career and personal life. Examples of support that the program provides include release time and funding for research personnel in a faculty member's lab. The TSP may also provide bridge money for outstanding faculty who need some funds to help restart a stalled program or change their research direction. The TSP complements tenure clock extension.
The Provost has agreed to expand the TSP program to faculty campus wide. The program is being managed by the ADVANCE staff in consultation with the Vice Provost. Information about the campus-wide TSP program can be found online at: http://www.washington.edu/admin/acadpers/procedures/transitional_support.html.
back to top
Last Updated: November 14, 2006
The College of Engineering website is regularly updated. We strive to make it universally accessible by conforming to the standards described by the DO-IT program. If you experience any problems with any webpages in this site, please contact the webmaster and/or read the known issues webpage.
 |
 |
 |