Any college faculty want to share their ML plans?

[ekaterin]

I need to talk to my chair tomorrow and I would love to hear what others are doing/have done.  My chair is new-ish so he has never negotiated a leave before and he's not the most...flexible...person.  I'm hoping that having some models of how this could be done will help the discussion go more smoothly. TIA!

[helgamelga]

I had a semester course release for the semesters that I had my children. I had no teaching duties those semesters (I was fortunate to get full pay) and came back to do research/admin type work when I felt ready to do so. I know that a whole semester off seems like a lot to a chair, but I think it's the least disruptive way. I couldn't imagine teaching part of a semester and then having someone take over part way through.

[ekaterin]

Thanks helgamelga! Did you have to make up the course(s) you missed in a later semester or take a pay cut to equal the time off? I'm given 8 - 10 weeks paid, but HR considers a semester to be 20 so I'm not sure if I should be open to 50% pay for the term or offer to teach an extra class the following term if the chair balks at a whole semester off.

[rbp]

Same as helgamelga. I will be off the first six weeks of the semester then go back in early October for research, advising, and meetings (10-20 hours a week). A one semester release from teaching with full pay is provided by my university's parental leave policy. Have you looked at your faculty handbook?

[ekaterin]

Thanks the sharing, rbp. As for the handbook, yes, and I met with HR today. HR said that the exact arrangement is completely up to my chair. We don't have any official policy about how faculty ML should be handled (we def. do not get a semester release from teaching!) and in our dept. the last 2 women who went on leave took the absolute minimum time and did not get off from teaching at all. Their grad students covered their classes for the 6 weeks. My role is a bit different so I absolutely want a semester release from teaching. I'm glad to hear that that may be common enough that I'm not going to seem ridiculous for requesting it!

[rbp]

Jul 29, 2014 22:25:36 GMT -5 ekaterin said:

We don't have any official policy about how faculty ML should be handled (we def. do not get a semester release from teaching!) and in our dept. the last 2 women who went on leave took the absolute minimum time and did not get off from teaching at all.  

Oh man, crappy precedent for you.   This is the only school where I've taught, so I don't know how common it is for policies to be spelled out in the faculty handbook, or how common a teaching release is.

I initially got a little pushback from my chair. When I told her I was pg, the first thing she said was "I had three kids while I was teaching and never took a maternity leave." Um...would you like a cookie?  :-# Also, this was in the 80s-90s when ML wasn't an option. 

There's NO WAY I was going back to teaching at 3w PP (when our semester starts), so I knew I would be out for at least part of the fall semester. She warmed up to this idea and realized it would be less disruptive for everyone (the students, me, and my replacement) to hire someone to teach my classes for the entire semester. 

Our faculty handbook spells out two separate types of leave: a maternity leave is a complete leave from all work duties for the time your doctor certifies that you are unable to work (usually 6-8w), while a parental leave is a one-semester teaching release for caring for a child. Maternity leave is only for birth mothers, while parental leave is for birth or adoptive mothers or fathers. Now, I really doubt that a lot of new fathers are taking a one-semester teaching release to care for their new babies, but they are entitled to it per the faculty handbook. 

I do wonder if/how this is going to affect my career. I am in my second year on the tenure track (this is my third year here, but we also get an automatic one-year pause in the tenure clock when we have a baby--this is worth strong consideration if you are TT). I don't want to be seen as a slacker for taking advantage of the benefits afforded to me. I had a different problem from you (mine was probably a little easier to deal with) in that there was basically no precedent for maternity leave. Female faculty at my college apparently don't have babies? The female professor with the youngest kids has a 10-year-old. The administration hadn't negotiated a ML in 10 years! I was very nervous about meeting with the dean, but when I got to his office he said "I hear congratulations are in order!" I instantly relaxed. My proposal said basically the same thing as the faculty handbook, and he said everything sounded fine. He also approached me a few weeks later and said "when you're here part time in the fall, don't feel like you need to get any face time or anything...just come when you really have to and do what you really have to do." It seems like he's looking out for me since this is a new experience for all of us, so hopefully his intentions are as helpful as he seems. 

Anyway, I know what a stressful situation this is, and I wish you the very best of luck! I hope that your chair and other important people ultimately are excited for you and not annoyed. 

ETA: You may also want to post this on MMM. I got some really good suggestions from swank and smock, who are also academics.

[smock]

Here to share my experience too--our official policy is 6 weeks paid, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense for professors. The unofficial policy is that it depends on your chair and whether s/he is willing to go to bat for you. My chair is awesome, and even though I had my baby at the beginning of summer and she will be 12 weeks old when fall semester starts, my chair negotiated a one course release for the fall. That means I'll only have one class to teach, and no pay cut or making up the time.

I actually got really lucky with this situation, because one of my colleagues had a baby in January and got a course release for all her spring classes, and my chair felt like I should "get" something too. I've also heard that the previous chair was a lot less flexible, so unfortunately when there's not an official policy a lot of it just depends on luck and timing.

Good luck!

[ekaterin]

Thanks so much, rbp, swank, and smock for adding to this. I agree that the flexibility is both positive and negative. I met with the chair today and it went OK. He was unwilling to set a plan up and wants to consider how to handle this after consulting with HR and the previous chair. The previous chair was the one who negotiated the very short leaves (a women, btw, so rbp I think I might better understand the possible reason for that now given your experience). It's just good to hear possible models of how this could work so that I can propose other options if he doesn't like my plan. It's also interesting how differently this issue is treated at different institutions. I wonder if it varies by type (research focused, regional, SLAC, etc).

Somewhat related, b/c I hate to make another thread for a topic that only a few people will likely contribute to - if you taught in person while pregnant did you tell your students? I'm not showing now but I will be by the end of the fall and I'm not sure whether they need to know. DH also teaches in my dept. and says not to say anything, but he's interested in this more as a social experiment and I'm not sure I trust his motivation!

Thanks again all : )

[rbp]

Jul 30, 2014 17:33:43 GMT -5 ekaterin said:

Somewhat related, b/c I hate to make another thread for a topic that only a few people will likely contribute to - if you taught in person while pregnant did you tell your students? I'm not showing now but I will be by the end of the fall and I'm not sure whether they need to know. DH also teaches in my dept. and says not to say anything, but he's interested in this more as a social experiment and I'm not sure I trust his motivation!

Thanks again all : )

I asked this question in February. I ultimately did tell my students because (a) I teach chemistry and needed to avoid certain reagents in the lab and (b) I was showing in the last two months of the semester, and it seemed really awkward to not address it. It also felt awkward and AW-ish to tell students who would conceivably not be affected by my pregnancy, but I'm glad I did. Some of them completely ignored it and others were really excited for me!