Study after study has found that family-friendly policies improve performance by increasing productivity, morale and loyalty while also reducing absenteeism, turnover and “brain drain.” In a recently published op-ed, a member of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated UConn-AAUP chapter called out her employer’s failure to ensure access to paid parental leave for all of its workforce. Associate Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology Sara Hird (at right, in photo, above) urged University of Connecticut officials to right this wrong and “to believe in a better future:”
When I was two to three weeks postpartum (living in California), I was at home with a seemingly healthy baby but I was falling apart.
I was getting less than 90 minutes of sleep at a time (because my baby had lost “too much” weight and I was told to feed him every 90 minutes around the clock); post-partum depression made it feel like breastfeeding a baby for the next six months was functionally equivalent to infinity and I thought I would never smile again; I had a seven inch incision healing across my lower abdomen and an itchy rash all over my body from a reaction to the anesthetic of the c-section.
What medicine for me would be safe for the baby? Did I have mastitis? Did I eat anything today? Why is he crying? Why isn’t he crying? Why am I crying? Ah yes, because my nipples are bleeding.
Difficult postpartum experiences like mine are common following the birth of a child. Put simply: recovering from birth takes time. Bonding with a newborn takes time. Adjusting to the new reality of parenthood takes time. But these investments provide the foundations for healthy families and productive workers.
I started at the University of Connecticut with a 1- and a 2-year-old and was shocked to hear stories from faculty who had babies here. Some were back in front of a classroom before I would have even been cleared to lift my baby (the incision hadn’t healed). One faculty member was on campus when his wife fell down the stairs carrying their newborn. Another had only one day off teaching before being back in a classroom – while his newborn twins were in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in New Haven. Yet another was at the emergency room in another state with their adoptive 3-day-old son while teaching her classes, abruptly moving them online but without interruption.
I have personally heard dozens of similar stories from UConn faculty spanning departments and decades and they all share this in common: UConn professors get zero days of guaranteed paid family leave.
UConn currently lets every pregnant/expecting individual reinvent the wheel, cobbling together a leave plan with whatever resources and departmental grace they can muster. The bottom line is that no person recovering from birth should take on the task of leading a classroom of college students. Because even standard new parent difficulties like spit-up-on-my-shirt-has-made-me-late or sleep-deprivation-has-muddled-my-brain can negatively affect students.
And while insufficient parental leave is suboptimal for students, for new parents it is downright cruel. And what do we gain from this cruelty? We get worse educators in the classroom, less creative and less productive scientists in the lab, unreliable committee members and poor decision makers.
The administrators at UConn are guaranteed 12 weeks of paid family leave. The graduate students at UConn are guaranteed six weeks of paid leave (birthing parent). Connecticut state law ensures all workers get 12 weeks paid family leave but UConn professors are exempt from that law because of our union. I’ll say it again: UConn professors get nothing. Zero guaranteed paid family leave.
The paid part is essential. New professors, frequently people of prime ages for starting or growing a family, have spent years on stipends and low postdoctoral salaries, likely moved across the country for their job multiple times, and thus may have started their faculty position with little to no savings.
Good professors leave UConn for a lack of family leave and resources – after we’ve invested substantial funds in their salaries and research groups. With a humane and robust and automatic (meaning, not dependent on someone judging then approving of your need) family leave policy, UConn could recruit and retain faculty of the highest caliber, while simultaneously creating a community that supports families. Everyone – from newborns to the elderly – needs care at some point. Minimizing the bureaucracy involved with meeting that need benefits us all.
This has been a fight on parents’ radars for decades but various local and national crises always let it fade into the background. Families are the fundamental unit of society and we cannot let this go any longer. Yes, it will cost money. But that’s what society is for. To invest in, to believe in a better future.
UConn President Radenka Maric’s email signature claims: “Our expert researchers, faculty, staff, and alumni drive Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (CIE) for a better tomorrow. We fuel the State’s economy and are committed to inclusion with emotional intelligence in benefiting the greater good. This is UConn. STUDENTS FIRST, UCONN ALWAYS. HUSKIES FOREVER.”
The moral, ethical and humane choice for a better tomorrow that benefits the greater good through inclusion and emotional intelligence (that also puts students first) is obvious: professors deserve guaranteed paid family leave. Yes. “This is UConn.” But it could and should be better.
