The Year of the Newborns: A Department Chair's Reflections

Abstract

In September 2006, a newly hired tenure track faculty member informed me that she was expecting a child in March. During the next few months, three more faculty members told me that they were expecting in May, June, and August. Fully two-thirds of the faculty women were pregnant at the same time. We jokingly wondered if it was the water. I understood the importance of supporting these faculty members during this time. Research suggests that a combination of the amount of time spent at work (rational model) and the perceptions of control of the workplace and support from the institution (job strain model) impact faculty members' stress (O'Laughlin and Bischoff 99). I expected that by following university work-family policies, it would be a simple matter to assist each of them in managing their situation. I discovered the situation was much more complex. The policies were not universally known, they created a range of responses from individuals directly and indirectly affected by them, and they were part of broader set of family-work issues to consider. It started simply enough. I was aware that our university the policy allowed faculty members to extend their by a year for family-related issues including pregnancies. I fully supported a recent policy change that made approval of requests for probationary period extensions due to childbirth or adoption automatic for primary caregivers. Clearly while parenting a newborn, faculty members experience a confluence of the three major types of work-family conflicts identified: time-based (time used on one activity detracts from the other), strain-based (mental effort on one activity interferes with the other), and behavior-based (behaviors appropriate for one activity are inappropriate for the other) (Greenhaus and Beutell 77-81). As noted elsewhere (Sullivan, Hollenshead, and Smith 25), allowing additional time for promotion and tenure is a simple and essentially cost-free way to support new parents. If a faculty member achieves promotion and tenure with an additional year, the department and university retain a valuable faculty member at no cost. If a faculty member fails to achieve promotion even with the additional year, the department and university still receive the faculty member's services for the year. The only cost is a one-year delay in searching for a new faculty member who may or may not be more likely to gain tenure. In full support of the policy, after congratulating each faculty member, I informed her of this option. Two expectant faculty members were not affected by the policy--one was in a non-tenure track position and the other was already up for promotion. I was a bit surprised at the reluctance of one of the two eligible faculty members to take advantage of the stop the clock policy. Like situations documented elsewhere (Kirby and Krone 71), she was concerned that taking advantage of the policy might label her negatively and ultimately hurt her promotion and tenure chances. I assured her that she would not be forced to wait another year because she requested the extension, and that she might even go up early if her record of teaching and scholarship continued as it had so far. Despite my assurances, she did not request an extension--I believe in part because of her fears. The other faculty member asked for and received an extension. My pride in my awareness of the stop the clock policy was shattered when I found out that the College of Arts and Science has a phantom maternity policy. The policy provides a new parent with a reduction in teaching of one course for one semester surrounding the birth or adoption of a child and includes an option for the reduction of a second course if the professor teaches an overload another semester or a summer course without the usual additional compensation. I call it a phantom policy because although it was posted on the college's Web site at one time, it was removed in a dispute among college and university administrators over the appropriateness of individual colleges developing their own maternity/paternity policies. …