Board Seeks Member Input on Campus and Systemwide Family Policies

As many of our members probably know, over the past few years a number of groups have been working to develop family-friendly policies. At the systemwide level, The "UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge" (an initiative funded by the Sloan Foundation in 2003 with former CUCFA President Mary Ann Mason as the Principal Investigator) is perhaps the most well-known (for more information, go to ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/ucfamilyfriendlyedge.html). On this campus, such now-defunct groups as the Chancellor's Committee on Work-Life Balance, the Vice-Provost's Committee on the Implementation of Maternity Leave Recommendations, and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Work-Life Balance made some progress toward realizing policies that support both men and women in juggling career and family obligations. However, we understand from Diane Wolf (who, with Emily Goldman, co-chaired the first campus committee and was a member of the other two) as well as from others who know of the work of these groups that there are numerous issues that still need to be addressed. Among these are the availability of full-time child care on campus, inequities (especially for fathers) in the parental leave policy, establishment of clear policies for sick-child, spouse, or elder care, and the rising costs of health care itself.

If you too are concerned with issues such as these, please let us know. Let us know too whether you would be in favor of the establishment of a permanent campus group to monitor and work to improve campus and systemwide family-friendly policies. And tell us whether you think this is something DFA should be working on. Please send your comments to myrna@ucdfa.org

Questions about the "Family-Friendly" Sloan Award to UCD and UCB

The DFA has just recently learned that the Davis and Berkeley campuses received an Alfred P. Sloan award in the amount of $250,000 to "expand programs supporting career flexibility for tenured and tenure-track faculty." More specifically, the Sloan grant will "provide for an online toolkit for use by all of the campuses that details for Deans and chairs family accommodation policies, laws, benefits and resources; and training for new faculty and for chairs and deans. . . . UCD. . . will pilot an innovative program in which tenured campus faculty serve as advisers for new and junior faculty." The UC Berkeley Press Release of September 25, 2006, which is the source of this information, can be accessed by going to www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/09/25_sloan.shtml.

What we don't know as of this date, but will be investigating, is exactly who on the Davis campus (other than the cited UCD spokesperson Binnie Singh) is responsible for administering the campus's share of the award and what has been accomplished thus far. Look for the answers in a news brief later this spring.