Establishing the Family-Friendly Campus: Models for Effective Practice

by Jaime Lester (Editor), Margaret Sallee (Editor)

Overview

The impact of changing demographics in higher education, and the importance of family-friendly policies, is well documented. There is an urgent need to keep PhDs in the higher education sector, to recruit talented scholars into academia, and retain them over the course of their academic careers. The key is instituting policies to enable all constituencies to balance work and personal responsibilities.This book covers the range of issues faced by all generations in academe, from PhD students, to the “sandwich generation” (those caring for children and aging parents simultaneously) through to older faculty and administrators. It addresses the causes for women faculty with children leaving the academy at a disproportionately higher rate than men, the conflicts women face between academic work and motherhood, and the difficulties they encounter in reentering the academy after having left the professoriate. In examining the need for family-friendly policies, this book documents the “best practices” currently in use at institutions across the United States. Each chapter highlights practices and programs from a variety of institutions and institutional types that address the needs of a more inclusive family-friendly campus and offers suggestions to others who are implementing similar change on their campuses. These examples provide context so that readers no longer have to develop practices in isolation, and without evidence of their effectiveness.The editors suggest that the most successful campuses are those that utilize a work-life systems framework to meet the needs of its employees. They also point to future growth trends, including expanding the focus from faculty and staff to incorporate all in the campus communityThis book offers guidance to department chairs, deans, faculty, administrators, and graduate students on setting a family-friendly agenda, and models for implementation.Contributors include: Emily Arms -- Kathleen Beauchesne -- Jill Bickett -- Sharon A. Dannels -- Mariko Dawson Zare -- Karie Frasch -- Marc Goulden -- Jeni Hart -- Caryn Jung -- Jaime Lester -- Sharon A. McDade -- Jean McLaughlin -- Mary Ann Mason -- Sharon Page-Medrich -- Kate Quinn -- Margaret Sallee -- Randi Shapiro -- Angelica Stacy -- David L. Swihart -- Gloria D. Thomas -- Darci Thompson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000976960
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/03/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	582 KB

About the Author

Jaime Lester

Margaret W. Sallee is Associate Professor and Higher Education Program Coordinator in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on two broad areas: faculty work and the graduate student experience. She uses a critical lens to examine the intersection of individual experiences and organizational culture to interrogate the ways in which gender and other social identities operate on college campuses. She has spent much of the past decade focusing on work/life balance and the ways in which institutional norms and culture shape parents’ experiences on and off-campus. She also is deeply interested in how gender affects individuals’ experiences and is particularly interested in the role that gender and masculinities play in men’s lives.

Table of Contents

Preface—Jaime Lester and Margaret Sallee 1. Challenges and Efforts of Career Flexibility in Higher Education—Gloria Thomas & Jean M. McLaughlin 2. Balance@UW. Work-Family Cultural Change at the University of Washington—Kate Quinn and Randi Shapiro 3. Connecting Work and Life at the University of Arizona. Strategic Practice by UA Life & Work Connections—Caryn S. Jung, David L. Swihart and Darci Thompson 4. Family-Friendly Policies in Catholic Colleges and Universities. A Socially Just Imperative—Jill Bickett and Emily Arms 5. Hopkins 24/7. The Story of Leadership and Excellence in Work and Personal Life—Kathleen Beauchesne 6. The Devil is in the Details. Creating Family-Friendly Departments for Faculty at the University of California—Karie Frasch, Angelica Stacy, Mary Ann Mason, Sharon Page-Medrich and Marc Goulden 7. Shaping the Work Environment and Family Friendly Policies. A Perspective from Deans—Sharon A. McDade and Sharon A. Dannels 8. Family-Friendly Activism—Jeni Hart 9. From Advocacy to Action. Making Graduate School Family-Friendly—Margaret Sallee, Mariko Dawson Zare and Jaime Lester 10. The Family-Friendly Campus in the 21st Century—Margaret Sallee and Jaime Lester Appendix; Resources Index.

Editorial Reviews

"I found the book extremely useful... The approach of having individual chapters focused on specific policy reforms is a real strength... I found [the book] helpful and thought-provoking and believe others will as well."

The Review of Higher Education

"Establishing the Family-Friendly Campus provides valuable insights for chairs about how to best help faculty manage work-life balance... Whether the ultimate goal is to creat family-friendly campus environments for early-career faculty as a way to help them get established in their careers, or to help more established faculty find balance between demanding academic workplaces and family needs, this book can help campus leaders think in new and different ways about work-life as a concept and about a policy arena that can help faculty have genuinely more interesting and intgrated lives that include quality work and personal lives–whether they have personal family needs or not. This volume helps facul,ty thrive in their careers–a goal to which all campus leaders should aspire."

The Department Chair

"If "family friendly" was once code for policies accommodating female professors with children, this new book makes the case for a much broader definition. Establishing the Family-Friendly Campus advises institutuions to attend to the entire life-cycle of faculty, staff, and students. It surveys the best practices in work-life balance programs, covering the spectrum from maternity leave to flexible work arrangements to elder care. The changing demographics of the workforce have made such policies important recruitment and retention tools; but more importantly, they have put pressure on institutions of higher education to acknowledge the intersecting and interdependent nature of "the entire work-life system". This book is an essential read for administrators, department chairs, and any faculty concerned with the relation between work and family life."

Michelle Voss Roberts, Rhodes College

Teaching Theology and Religion

"This collection documents the best practices currently being implemented to create more family-friendly campus environments, primarily at the graduate level, and provides implementation suggestions for interested administrators, faculty, and students. The ten chapters describe work-life balance initiatives at the University of Washington, deans' perspectives on the existence of flexibility policies and women's benefits, and a student effort to establish a pregnancy accommodation program."

Book News Inc.

"With this volume on family-friendly policy and practice, editors Lester and Sallee have created a much-needed kit for retooling work–life balance in academe... The book is a rich resource and contains a multitude of suggestions for faculty, staff, and students working across a spectrum of institutuional types, from research universities to liberal arts colleges. But it also highlights the limitations of policy changes without corresponding shifts in cluture, and underscores the importance of institutional leadership and accountability with cultural realignment is at stake."

On Campus With Women

"To achieve and maintain the excellence they desire, American universities and colleges increasingly recognize that they must recruit and retain the best faculty, staff and students. One significant way of doing this is by providing innovative work-family policies and practices. This groundbreaking book by Jaime Lester and Margaret Sallee documents the advances made by leading colleges and universities to become genuinely family-friendly campuses and in so doing position themselves on the path to excellence."

Kathleen Christensen, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

“The recruitment and retention of a diverse and talented faculty calls for new and creative ways to think about faculty development. This book is the ultimate compendium of resources, ideas, and best practices related to creating family friendly campuses. Every faculty member and administrator that works with faculty and graduate students should have this book on their shelf. What a great resource. Margaret Sallee and Jaime Lester have left no stone unturned when it comes to research, policy, and practice related to creating family friendly policy and campuses.”

Kelly Ward, Associate Professor, Washington State University

“If you need a blueprint for creating a flexible, family-responsive college or university, this is it. Actually, it provides many blueprints, because there is no single road to successful organizational change, and what you might need on your own campus is almost certainly somewhere in this book. Great stuff!”

Robert Drago, Professor of Labor Studies and Women's Studies, Penn State University, co-founder and chair of the Take Care Net, and past president of the College & University Work-Family Association

From the Publisher

"This collection documents the best practices currently being implemented to create more family-friendly campus environments, primarily at the graduate level, and provides implementation suggestions for interested administrators, faculty, and students. The ten chapters describe work-life balance initiatives at the University of Washington, deans' perspectives on the existence of flexibility policies and women's benefits, and a student effort to establish a pregnancy accommodation program."

Book News Inc.

If you need a blueprint for creating a flexible, family-responsive college or university, this is it. Actually, it provides many blueprints, because there is no single road to successful organizational change, and what you might need on your own campus is almost certainly somewhere in this book. Great stuff!

Robert Drago

"If "family friendly" was once code for policies accommodating female professors with children, this new book makes the case for a much broader definition. Establishing the Family-Friendly Campus advises institutuions to attend to the entire life-cycle of faculty, staff, and students. It surveys the best practices in work-life balance programs, covering the spectrum from maternity leave to flexible work arrangements to elder care. The changing demographics of the workforce have made such policies important recruitment and retention tools; but more importantly, they have put pressure on institutions of higher education to acknowledge the intersecting and interdependent nature of "the entire work-life system". This book is an essential read for administrators, department chairs, and any faculty concerned with the relation between work and family life."

Teaching Theology and Religion - Michelle Voss Roberts

"With this volume on family-friendly policy and practice, editors Lester and Sallee have created a much-needed kit for retooling work–life balance in academe... The book is a rich resource and contains a multitude of suggestions for faculty, staff, and students working across a spectrum of institutuional types, from research universities to liberal arts colleges. But it also highlights the limitations of policy changes without corresponding shifts in cluture, and underscores the importance of institutional leadership and accountability with cultural realignment is at stake."

On Campus With Women

"To achieve and maintain the excellence they desire, American universities and colleges increasingly recognize that they must recruit and retain the best faculty, staff and students. One significant way of doing this is by providing innovative work-family policies and practices. This groundbreaking book by Jaime Lester and Margaret Sallee documents the advances made by leading colleges and universities to become genuinely family-friendly campuses and in so doing position themselves on the path to excellence."

Kathleen Christensen

"I found the book extremely useful... The approach of having individual chapters focused on specific policy reforms is a real strength... I found [the book] helpful and thought-provoking and believe others will as well."

The Review of Higher Education

"Establishing the Family-Friendly Campus provides valuable insights for chairs about how to best help faculty manage work-life balance... Whether the ultimate goal is to creat family-friendly campus environments for early-career faculty as a way to help them get established in their careers, or to help more established faculty find balance between demanding academic workplaces and family needs, this book can help campus leaders think in new and different ways about work-life as a concept and about a policy arena that can help faculty have genuinely more interesting and intgrated lives that include quality work and personal lives–whether they have personal family needs or not. This volume helps facul,ty thrive in their careers–a goal to which all campus leaders should aspire."

The Department Chair

The recruitment and retention of a diverse and talented faculty calls for new and creative ways to think about faculty development. This book is the ultimate compendium of resources, ideas, and best practices related to creating family friendly campuses. Every faculty member and administrator that works with faculty and graduate students should have this book on their shelf. What a great resource. Margaret Sallee and Jaime Lester have left no stone unturned when it comes to research, policy, and practice related to creating family friendly policy and campuses.

Kelly Ward