Family-Friendly Policies

The development of family-friendly policies has become a concern for institutions of higher education due to the rise of women faculty who enter academe during childbearing years and increased competition for high quality faculty. Primarily prompted by external grant agencies, such as the Sloan Foundation, several colleges and universities have developed very progressive family-friendly policies. As tenure-track faculty, it is important to know about these policies so that we can evaluate universities in which we are applying, to examine the practices/policies at our current institutions, and, most importantly, in order to know what we need to advocate for when we find ourselves in need of such accommodations.

Here is a list of just some of the more progressive family-friendly policies/practices:

The Duke Child Care Partnership increases the number of high quality child care spaces available in the community and provides priority placement for Duke families at participating centers.
http://www.hr.duke.edu/dccp/

The Campus Child Care Homes Network at the University of Michigan is a university-supported network of independent, state-licensed child care homes.
http://hr.umich.edu/worklife/childcare/homesnetwork.php

Working at IOWA (WAI) is a campus-wide survey assessing engagement among faculty and staff. WAI seeks to better understand the strengths of the University as an employer, celebrate successes, and continue to commit to the effort of improving the workplace culture.
http://www.uiowa.edu/hr/working/index.html

The UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge is an initiative designed to develop and implement a comprehensive package of innovative work-family policies and programs for ladder-rank faculty in the UC system.
http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/ucfamilyfriendlyedge.html

The Breastfeeding Support Program at the University of California Davis provides breastfeeding moms a place to express milk during their work or school day.
http://www.hr.ucdavis.edu/Work_Life/Life/breastfeed/breastfeed

Lehigh University Work/Life Balance Research Grants are small ($6,000) one-time grants that are awarded to help untenured faculty members sustain research productivity while caring for the child, or other family member.
http://www.lehigh.edu/~insloan/researchgrants.html


Thanks to my friend Margaret for helping with this list!