The UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge:
turning a problem into UC's competitive advantage

The UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge is series of projects designed to support the development and implementation of innovative work-family policies and programs for academics in the UC system, as well as to examine the role of institutions of higher education and federal granting agencies in leaks from the academic pipeline at all stages.

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Federal Grants and the Academic Pipeline Sloan Grant

The Federal Grants and the Academic Pipeline project is focused on the intersection between the policies of institutions of higher education and federal granting agencies, and their joint impact on the academic pipeline.

The Sloan Award for Faculty Career Flexibility

The Sloan Award for Faculty Career Flexibility was awarded to UC Berkeley (with UC Davis) in 2006. The award was used to increase awareness and use of family responsive policies, shift the academic culture further toward acceptance of family friendliness and family responsiveness, and continue to push through a number of relevant initiatives. Data analyses from surveys conducted in 2002-2003 and 2009 at UC Berkeley show impressive gains in awareness and use of core family responsive policies such as tenure clock extension and active service modified duties (ASMD), as well as overwhelming support for family responsive policies by faculty. The most recent cohort of assistant professor women at UC Berkeley also have significantly higher rates of children than past cohorts.

The UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge Sloan Grant

The award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the campus's Work/Family Initiative is earmarked for work to assess, revise and implement a package of "family-friendly" policies designed to make flexible career paths and part-time work status viable options for ladder-rank faculty with caregiving responsibilities.

Major UC Initiatives

The UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge includes policies, programs, services and benefits to support faculty and their families... all types of families. These options and programs are continuously under improvement and expansion. Here are some examples:

• Up to two terms (quarters or semesters) reduced duties (ASMD active service-modified duties) for new parents with substantial care-giving responsibilities.
  
  
• Stopping the tenure clock to allow time for care of a newborn or newly adopted child under five.
  
  
• A flexible part-time option for ladder-rank faculty with substantial familial caregiving responsibilities.
  
  
• Parental leave (unpaid) for up to one year to care for a child (including a child of either spouse or domestic partner).
  
  
• One year unpaid leave to care for self or a sick family member, including domestic partner. Up to 12 weeks fully paid leave with Chancellor's approval.
  
  
• An institutional commitment to both current and future expansion of high-quality infant and child care.
  
  
• Housing assistance and a new program for Partners and Spouses job search.

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