Recruiting, Promoting

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Recruiting, Promoting Retaining The Best
FacultyThe Role of Work/Family Policies

• Lisa Wolf-Wendel
• University of Kansas

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Goals for the Session

• Establish why universities should care about
  work/family policies
• Recruitment focus on Dual Career Couple
  Policies
• Promotion Retention focus on needs of
  academics with children
• Future of work/family Policies

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Context

• Higher Education is in flux
• Academics (future academics) lives are
  complicated
• Institutions of Higher Education are not
  altruistic

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Why Institutions are Becoming Family Friendly

• To recruit, promote and retain best faculty
• To address concerns about representation
• To raise morale and increase productivity
• To create more equitable work places
• Pressure from external sources

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Recruitment The case for Dual Career Couple
Hiring Policies

• Types of help
• Ad hoc, decentralized
• Relocation assistance
• Consortia
• Shared positions
• Creation of non-tenure track positions
• Creation of tenure track positions

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When Dual Career Hiring Works

• Serendipity
• Initial hire is really wanted
• Quality of second hire
• Fit of second hire/needs of unit
• Culture and Receptivity of hiring department
• Willingness/needs of second hire
• Availability of resources

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Tenure, Promotion Retention (other work family
policies)

• In Academia work and family has been an either
  or proposition (especially for women)
• Could wait to have children.
• Could opt not to pursue an academic career
• Could opt for a less prestigious position
• How do faculty manage work and family?

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Academic motherhood study

• Qualitative study
• Interviews with 120 women
• Variety of institutional types
• All with young children, all tenure track
• Variety of fields
• Interviewed early career (less than five years)
  and mid career (5-7 years later)
• Reviewed institutional policies

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Early Career Findings

• The joy of professional and personal roles
• Academic work is flexible, but unending
• Having a child makes you efficient
• Puts things into perspective

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Early Career Findings

• Buffering
• Preoccupation with timing
• The second shift is alive and well
• Individual agency
• Departments determine culture
• Policies are important, but underutilized

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Mid Career Findings

• Most were successful and thriving
• More flexibility, less work stress
• Easier to prioritize their interests at work
• Parental concerns shift
• changing diapers to arranging car pools
• Scheduling is a major issue
• Not wanting to deal with politics
• Hesitant to go up for promotion and move into
  administration

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Mid Career Findings

• Burnout
• Stress of pre-tenure stage still stings
• Need for self care
• Mentoring and support
• Serve as mentors for others
• Helped to create institutional policies
• Dont receive mentoring or support

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Family Friendly Policies

• Dual Career couple hiring
• Day care affordable and accessible
• Tenure clock stop policies
• Family leave policies
• Modified duty policies
• Flexibility in tenure
• Professional development (throughout career)
• Mentoring (throughout career)

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Dilemmas Tenure and Biological clock can they
coexist

• Ideal Worker/Ideal Scientist

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Dilemmas

• FMLA is not enough
• Not an entitlement
• Not just a womans problem
• Not just for junior faculty

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Questions/Discussion

• Institutional versus individual perspectives
• Results at different institutional types
• Disciplinary differences
• Gender differences
• Questions? contact Lisa Wolf-Wendel lwolf_at_ku.edu