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Parental Leave in Academe
The Family, Gender and Tenure Project at the
University of Virginia studied institutions and individuals.
One finding
was that "All of the administrators surveyed replied, officially,
that there is no stigma attached to policy utilization;
but their more candid anecdotal responses provide some
evidence that stigma is a factor in policy use."
For example, one administrator said, "Some female faculty
who have submitted a request [for stopped tenure clock]
have been told by their department chair that they
shouldn´t because it will count against them." See Parental Leave in Academia:
http://faculty.virginia.edu/familyandtenure.
The Mapping Project at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed female and male faculty members, interviewed administrators and department chairs for case studies, and observed faculty members from two research universities. Many of the survey responses, from both men and women, revealed awareness that family responsibilities might interfere with career success. Many respondents had hesitated to ask for parental leave, delayed tenure clock, or reduced teaching loads in order to deal with family responsibilities. The report is available at http://lsir.la.psu.edu/workfam/mappingproject.htm.
The Do Babies Matter Project at the University of California at Berkeley has studied correlations between "early babies" (babies entering households within five years of Ph.D.) and tenure in a national sample. Not surprisingly, tenure was more likely for men with early babies than for comparable women. A survey of UC tenured and tenure-track faculty members found that women were more likely to report they had fewer children than desired or that they stayed single. A respondent said, "I have observed the university increasingly taking on the model of corporate culture. I am not surprised that so few of my junior colleagues have decided to have children. Graduate students pick up the signal very early: devote time to family or community at your own risk." Another observed, "You should know that female graduate students are telling us over and over again across the nation that they are not going to become faculty members because they do not see how they can combine work and family in a way that is reasonable." See articles at www.grad.berkeley.edu/deans/mason.
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