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FACULTY STATUS AND WELFARE COMMITTEE
ATTACHMENT CReport and Resolution on the Need for a Dual Career Policy
I. Introduction
SIUC is behind the curve in establishing well-defined, clearly articulated dual career policies. As has been widely recognized over the last decade, increasingly universities are faced with recruiting and retaining faculty and administrative staff who have partners in academia or who have partners seeking work in the surrounding community. For a school in an isolated setting such as Carbondale these issues can be particularly significant in the recruitment and retention of faculty. Although a number of things are done at times on an informal, piecemeal, case-by-case basis at SIUC, there is no central location that one seeking information on opportunities for partners can go; there is no clearly articulated policy, and someone seeking information on opportunities for partners has no easy access to information about what has been done in the past. The informal approach now used but not widely known should be transformed into clearly articulated policies to which there is easy access, including a highly visible designated person to deal with these issues.
II. History of Dual Career Issues at SIUC
The issue of formalizing a partner policy has been discussed at SIUC for at least the past twelve years. In 1989, then President Guyon stated at a Women's Caucus meeting that he was committed to the creation of a partner placement program. There have been internal memoranda on the issue within the chancellor's office as recently as 1998, and the issue was the subject of work by Marji Morgan while she was serving as a UWPA administrative intern to Margaret Winters in the Spring of 2000. Currently, SIUC addresses dual career issues on an ad hoc basis. At times, search waivers have been issued to facilitate the hiring of a partner of a candidate. University Women's Professional Advancement (UWPA) has maintained lists of employers in the region and have made those lists available to people who inquire about job opportunities for partners. The provost's office has at times referred people to UWPA if they have inquired about the issue. On the other hand, SIUC has no formal policy in place regarding assistance to partners of current and prospective faculty or staff. Whether a candidate or employee would discover the resources which are available is left to happenstance. There is no centralized source for information and no well established policies on issues relating to dual careers.
III. The Effect of the Lack of a Policy on Recruitment and Retention of Faculty
One academic publication, (The ASCB Newsletter, vol 24, No. 1, January 2001), recently advised potential job candidates, "If a double hire is your specific goal, then it may not be worth the effort it takes to apply to an institution that does not at least have a policy stating that spousal hires without a national search are permissible." While SIUC has permitted search waivers for partner hires where the primary hire negotiates for it (the Affirmative Action Office reports that there were three such search waivers in the 1999-2000 academic year), there is no accessible policy on the issue. A candidate following the advice of this newsletter might not even bother to apply to SIUC. Even if they do apply, their search of SIUC websites and policies, unlike those of many other universities will not indicate an openness or friendliness to partner issues. Further, information gathered by the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor (Planning and Budget) indicates that dissatisfaction of a spouse or partner or lack of professional opportunities for a spouse or partner were frequently cited reasons both for non-acceptance of offered positions by candidates and for leaving by faculty who were leaving SIUC to take a position at another institution.
IV. What's Happening at Other Schools
A. Job Search Assistance
A review of websites of other universities and colleges reveals that many, perhaps the majority, have prominently displayed information concerning dual career issues. The range of services offered at other schools is wide. Many provide resource information. For some schools this is the full extent of their services, for others it is simply one aspect of a multi-facted program. Schools which provide resource services often prominently display them on websites and provide well-designed pamphlets to candidates for positions. These services include maintaining a web page of job opportunities in the region, maintenance of a data bank of information, job counselors who review resumes and offer practice interviews and answer immigration questions. (See Appendix).B. Job sharing
A number of schools allow job sharing so that an academic couple can split a single position or share 1.5 positions. (See Appendix). At SIU, current tenure policies make this impossible because only full-time employment may be counted toward tenure under current policies.
C. Programs allowing temporary fellowships to allow the partner to seek placement:
Several schools offer non-tenure track fellowships to partners of faculty. For example, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a "Graduate College Scholars" program which was initiated to address problems in recruiting and retaining faculty and staff due to the lack of local career opportunities for dual career couples. The program is open to couples where one member of the couple is a faculty member or under consideration for a tenured or tenure track job. Applicants must be of UIUC faculty caliber, have received an appropriate terminal degree and have the endorsement of the head of an academic unit relevant to the potential Scholar's discipline. The scholar receives a 0% appointment through an academic department or the Graduate School and are eligible for grants of seed money up to $5,000 and may apply for external support with the endorsement of the university. Laboratory space, offices, computer time and other faculty amenities may be negotiated.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln provides for "Faculty Fellowships." These fellowships are one-year, part time salaried appointments within an academic unit for partners who have an appropriate terminal degree. The stated policy of the program is to allow partners "a base from which to seek on-going employment, conduct research, or seek external funds." See Appendix for further information
D. Programs facilitating full-time hire of partner
A number of schools, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The University of Wisconsin, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan have funded programs to facilitate partner hires. At each of these schools, if the partner is an appropriate candidate, a position for the partner is funded for a limited period (usually three years--perhaps with the cost allocation shifting in those years). The cost of the partner's hire is generally divided with 1/3 coming from the provost's office, 1/3 from the hiring department of the principal hire and 1/3 from the department of the partner hire. See Appendix for further information.
V. Approach that Should be Adopted at SIUC
In order to be competitive, SIUC needs to adopt a highly visible, well-advertised dual career policy.
A. Who should be covered?
Because SIUC already has in place a policy of non-discrimination which includes non-discrimination based on sexual orientation (Employees' Handbook at 19), any policy adopted should not be limited to spouses of candidates but should include domestic partners. While it is beyond the scope of this report to hammer out the definition of "domestic partner," the definition used by Northern Arizona University provides a good start. Under that school's policy, one qualifies as a partner if three of the following 5 criteria are met: 1) the two people have reciprocal wills; 2) there is evidence of having dependent children together (either biological or adopted or children in non- traditional families); 3) maintaining a primary residence together (6 months or more); 4) maintaining a joint banking or savings account; 5) maintaining each other as primary beneficiary of life insurance policies, pension, or retirement plans.
Because we are the Faculty Senate, our emphasis has been on the hiring of partners of tenure and tenure track faculty or of candidates for such positions. We see no reason the policy should not be extended to other staff where the recruiting market is national. However, our proposed policies address faculty issues, not staff issues.
B. What should be provided?
There are several policies that can be immediately adopted that have only a small budgetary impact. Other possibilities must be considered in light of budgetary limits or other concerns. It is the view of the committee that the following should be adopted immediately as part of a dual career policy:
A) a statement that partner placement may be considered, at the discretion of the hiring unit, a positive factor in making a hiring decision if the partner candidate is otherwise qualified for the position.
Rationale: This provision will not mandate any hiring unit to give preference to a partner. Neither does it permit the hiring of an unqualified candidate. Instead, it merely states that a unit which wishes to consider as a positive factor the fact that a candidate is a partner of either a candidate or an already hired tenured or tenure track faculty member may do so. Many hiring units already take this into account, but in other units it has been argued that the partner relationship can have no bearing on hiring. This provision makes clear that the partner relationship may be considered a positive factor.
B) maintenance of a website and data bank of employment opportunities in the region, including area community colleges and SEMO, and that communication be maintained by the provost's office with such schools to assure current and accurate information about positions available at such schools.
Rationale: Candidates and faculty may have partners who seek employment opportunities outside of academia or in areas where there are no current openings at SIUC. Maintaining a data bank can facilitate information gathering by such a partner. In addition, we are informed that in the past there was job information sharing between SEMO and SIUC. This has changed as personnel have changed. Reinstituting this and making it a formalized relationship not based on the person in the position would benefit both schools.
C) that partners of tenure and tenure track faculty be extended library, email, and other university privileges as appropriate to allow the partner to continue his or her own research activities.
Rationale: Many partners have research agendas of their own. We can make SIUC more attractive to candidates we seek to recruit if we can facilitate the research agendas of partners.
D) that partner placement may be a sufficient reason for issuance of a search waiver for a position if 1)such a waiver is requested by the unit which seeks to hire the partner of either a) a current tenured or tenure track faculty member or b) of a candidate who is sought to be hired into a tenured or tenure track position by an academic unit, and 2)if the partner is otherwise qualified for the position.
Rationale: We already do this, at least with respect to candidates, but do not advertise that we do it. However, without a policy, a change in personnel at the affirmative action office could cause a change in what we do. Further, clearly articulating the policy makes it accessible to anyone who might want to negotiate on the issue rather than limiting it to those assertive enough to address it on their own. Articulating the policy will provide clear indication that SIUC is a partner-friendly university.
What Else Should We Consider?
A review of other schools shows that there are creative and interesting approaches being employed elsewhere. The Committee believes that some of these policies should be explored. Nevertheless, the implications of changing the tenure rules to allow job sharing, for example, are significant. Other partner policies, while desirable, may have a significant budgetary impact and cannot be undertaken without a review of resources. One such example is the approach used at Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and Illinois that allows the cost of a partner hire to be split three ways. The committee recommends that these other approaches be considered, but does not now recommend that they be adopted.VI. Proposed Resolution
Return to April 10, 2001, Agenda
ATTACHMENT C.1 WHEREAS universities increasingly face issues of dual career couples; andResolution on Dual Career Policy
WHEREAS having a clearly articulated and accessible policy on assistance provided to dual career couples will help with the recruiting and retention of qualified faculty for SIUC; and
WHEREAS SIUC's geographic isolation makes these issues particularly acute; and
WHEREAS the growing trend among universities and colleges is to have well defined dual career policies and a school's failure to have such a policy may put it at a disadvantage in the recruitment of faculty; therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate recommend that the Administration adopt a Dual Career Policy, that it advertise this policy on its website, designate a central contract person for information on this policy and provide information about this policy to prospective faculty and staff candidates; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Dual Career Policy contain the following elements:
A) a statement that partner placement may be considered, at the discretion of the hiring unit, a positive factor in making a hiring decision if the partner candidate is otherwise qualified for the position;BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the university explore additional dual career issues, including:B) maintenance of a website and data bank of employment opportunities in the region, including area community colleges and SEMO, and that communication be maintained by the provost's office with such schools to assure current and accurate information about positions available at such schools;
C) that partners of tenure and tenure track faculty be extended library, email, and other university privileges as appropriate to allow the partner to continue his or her own research activities;
D) that partner placement may be a sufficient reason for issuance of a search waiver for a position if 1)such a waiver is requested by the unit which seeks to hire the partner of either a) a current tenured or tenure track faculty member or b) a candidate who is sought to be hired into a tenured or tenure track position by an academic unit, and 2) if the partner is otherwise qualified for the position; and
A) the desirability and feasibility of the co-funding of positions;B) the development of policies allowing job sharing;
C) the creation of funded and limited term appointments for partners of tenured and tenure track appointees and candidates for tenured and tenure-track positions, and
D) the creation of an office to advise and facilitate the job search of partners of both current tenured or tenure track faculty members and of candidates who are sought to be hired into tenured or tenure track positions.
Return to April 10, 2001, Agenda