The Chronicle of Higher Education daily update alerted me to this news release from Dartmouth. It's all about their new "child accommodation policy".
The policy, under a two-year pilot program, allows graduate students who are full-time, stipend-supported and primary care providers to take up to 12 weeks of accommodation following the birth or adoption of a child. During the accommodation period, graduate students remain enrolled and receive their full stipend support and health benefits. An automatic one-term extension will also be granted to complete their degree.
This follows on the heels of Stanford's announcement of its policy back in January.
The policy gives...students an "academic-accommodation period" of up to two consecutive academic quarters, in which they can postpone examinations, course assignments, and other course work. They will also receive an automatic extension of one academic quarter (with the possibility of extending that to three quarters) to complete major university or departmental requirements such as qualifying exams.
The policy does not cover adoptions. In fact, they really don't want you to associate it with maternity overmuch.
Gail Mahood, associate dean for graduate policy, helped craft the new policy. She said she is loath to call it "maternity leave" because women who take advantage of it will still be intellectually engaged on the campus.
The policy does not apply to women who adopt children, she said, because the university is dealing only with the fact that women's most critical professional years often coincide with their peak childbearing years. That has made it hard to retain top female talent, particularly in the sciences. Women can always put off adopting, she said.
Fertile Stanford women: go forth and give birth! Just don't go too far forth. Cheer up, barren women! "Intellectually engaged" - I'm sure you can get a leg up on those birth mothers. Divide and conquer, I say.
Stanford may have been shamed into this policy by the actions of the chair of the chemistry department, Richard N. Zare. He instituted the following policy for his department in November of 2005:
The policy allows women who are pregnant or are new mothers to scale back their course work or research for up to 12 weeks and still get paid. How much women end up working during that time depends on deals they reach with their supervisors.
The announcement about Stanford's policy came ten days after the Chronicle reported on Mr. Zare's policy - and described it as "what may be the country's most generous maternity-leave policy for graduate students in chemistry".
Mr. Zare said:
"There is a balancing act between having a life outside the lab and the demands of a chemistry career...I am trying with my department to make a statement that we want a full life for people."
You'll remember the fanfare with which I greeted the announcement of Mr. Zare's policy. But I'm thinking he may have started a trend here. If you can't get the elite research institutions interested in full lives for graduate students, you can always get them interested in competition with each other. Dartmouth said of its policy:
While comparable institutions have child accommodation policies for graduate students, Barlowe said, few allow such an extended amount of time. The child accommodation policy being adopted by Dartmouth will be one of the most generous. [Dean of Graduate Studies Charles] Barlowe explains that a strong, progressive policy will allow Dartmouth not only to retain and support current graduate students who become parents, but will also help to attract strong candidates to graduate programs in the future.
Yes, Dartmouth! If you are nicer to the graduate students than Stanford is, they may prefer you to Stanford! It is really true! Yay! They are starting to figure it out! Who will be next? Duke? Princeton? When will MIT cave? I predict Cal Tech will be a hard core hold out. Poor, poor (literally) state flagship research institutions. Your state legislatures just aren't going to cough up the money required to treat graduate students nicely. The Chronicle reports:
[Dartmouth] says that about 450 students would be eligible for a leave under the policy, and up to about a half-dozen students each year might take advantage of it. If that many did so, it would cost the college as much as $85,000 per year in stipends, health insurance, and tuition costs.
So remember: when you go home and happily vote Republican because they lower your taxes, women graduate students at state research institutions are just one of the groups who will feel the pinch. But the ExxonMobil's president who earned $250,000 per week last year, will thank you for your vote. $250,000 - that's child accommodation policy coverage for about 18 graduate students for a year at Dartmouth. Every week. I wonder what it could buy you at Penn State?
1:40:15 PM 
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