Campuses Get Grant to Help Faculty With Families

Two UC campuses received a grant Monday to continue pursuing family- friendly faculty policies.

Though most of the $250,000 award will go to UC Berkeley and UC Davis, the campuses decided to spread a portion of the money throughout the UC system.

Only six institutions were chosen to receive the award, which was given out by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a non-profit organization based in New York.

The universities were selected after an extensive application process, said Paul Hassen, spokesperson for the American Council on Education, the organization that distributed the total $1.25 million grant made available by the Sloan Foundation.

A total of 260 research universities were eligible to apply for the award, and 55 schools submitted applications, he said.

The selection committee judged universities based on the creativity of their plans to further existing faculty policies, and their ability to encourage faculty recruitment, retention, and morale while maintaining academic competitiveness, Hassen said.

Many of the faculty policies that UC currently has in place originated in 2003 with the help of a grant from the Sloan Foundation, said Carol Hoffman, manager of Work/Life, a University Health Services program.

The current UC policies include leave time for family care, part-time options, and pause of the tenure process for new parents, Hoffman said.

With the new grant, officials at UC Berkeley said they intend to promote existing policies as well as continue to make improvements.

"Our goal is to use the award to ensure that faculty members are aware of what is available in terms of family-friendly policies, Hoffman said. "These policies can then be utilized so people can meet their family responsibilities while developing their careers."

The campus plans to distribute career flexibility brochures and create an online interactive e-mail mailing list for UC families.

It is the creation of new programs like these that the Sloan Foundation aims to support in distributing grant money to universities nation-wide, Hassen said.

"We hope the institutions receiving this award will become model programs that other institutes of higher education will be able to review and perhaps implement on their own campuses," he said.

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