December 13, 2005 UC Families Newsletter -- A new online newsletter and resource for faculty, staff and students at University of California campuses who are balancing academic goals or careers with family life. As with other newsletters of the Berkeley Parents Network, the life of the newsletter depends on people posting questions, comments, or suggestions and others responding or posting their own. Circulation: 545 MODERATOR NOTE: The newsletter will take a break for the holidays and resume the first week of January. You can continue to send postings or responses during this time, and they will be included in the first January newsletter. Thank you for your support of this resource. Moderator: Karie Frasch email: moderator_ucfam@parents.berkeley.edu Website: http://parents.berkeley.edu/ucfamilies Post a Message: http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html ---------------------------------------------- Contents ---------------------------------------------- *Welcome *Responses Original post: Help! Pregnant and on the academic job market! Original post: Staff person with new baby and full-time working husband Original post: Cal Health Plans and Fertility services *New postings Balancing parenting kids with care for older parents *Recent news Stopping the Tenure Clock without Asking 9 Presidents Issue Statement on Gender Equity *New members Since November 29th ----------------------------------------------- *Welcome ----------------------------------------------- Dear UC Families Subscribers, If this is the first newsletter you are receiving, the newsletter works by subscribers posting comments, questions, discussion topics, or current events to the list (these can be anonymous if desired). The moderator then compiles them, along with responses to past postings, and sends out regular newsletters. The success of the newsletter depends on the participation of subscribers, so please consider posting a message for advice or recommendations, or starting a discussion that others can respond to. This is a forum for faculty, staff, and students to post comments about addressing their academic work and family experiences, both positive and negative, and to get advice or suggest recommendations. It is our hope that it will also lead to more awareness of policies and programs, and ultimately further change the culture of the UC system to become more family friendly. ---------------------------------------------- *Responses ---------------------------------------------- Original post: Help! Pregnant and on the academic job market! ---------------------------------------------- I’m in my last year of a graduate program in the humanities and am on the job market for next fall. I’ve been successful as a student in terms of publishing and teaching, and consider myself a strong candidate for a tenure track position. I just found out a couple of months ago that I’m pregnant (due next June) and don’t know how I should handle my interviews and negotiations. I don’t want to lessen my chances of landing a good job but I do want to know if potential departments will be accommodating to my new family. Help! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Pregnant and starting to show! Response: Pregnant and on the academic job market ------------------------------------------- I'm not sure what accomodations you're hoping for from a department but my sense is that most places will expect you to teach in the Fall. In my department, new faculty get one course reduction their first year but I don't know if that's the norm in the humanities. You probably should be prepared to hit the deck running in the Fall in terms of teaching. Most universities do not have much of a maternity leave and only now does UC honor summer births (when I had a baby in July, the response was, 'why didn't you time it better?') and give women six months off from teaching starting at birth, so you can't assume you'll get any time off in Fall for maternity leave. I think you'll have to be thinking about teaching and seeing if your partner can do some baby-care and finding childcare as well. I would simply ask prospective departments what the teaching load is for first-year faculty members but I wouldn't advise asking for any special consideration until you get a job offer and are negotiating. good luck! Faculty Mother Response: Help! Pregnant and on the academic job market! ------------------------------------------- I've been in the same situation, and it is a dilemma, but I think that, if at all possible, you should conceal the pregnancy until you have job offers, and have begun negotiations. Given the incentives facing departments, it is hard to believe that you would receive as many offers were it known that you are pregnant. You should also keep in mind that what one or two faculty members in your new department tell you about their attitudes isn't all that meaningful. First, many pay lip service (but no more than that) to the idea that faculty with young children need accommodation, so what you are told may have little connection to what you'll actually experience once you begin work. Second, often the parties with whom you negotiate don't actually have the power to make binding commitments about these matters. They tell you what they might wish would happen, but upon your arrival, other members of your department, the Provost or Dean of Faculty, and administrators at your new institution may have the ultimate say-so. Oftentimes, policies are very nebulous, and little has been formalized. You'll be advised by friends and mentors to get things in writing (how I wish I had!), but getting things in writing can be difficult, and create acrimony, which is something you must try to avoid when you are untenured. Two more things to keep in mind are these: unless things have changed (or California has different laws than where I took my first tenure-track job), as an employee with fewer than 12 months on the job, you are not covered by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which entitles some workers to unpaid leave. Second, many unexpected things occur in pregnancy and childbirth, and you would be wise to leave yourself options. As I learned when I was a graduate student, you could, for example, be put on complete bedrest with 16 weeks of your pregnancy still to go! Or, as I learned as a new professor, your newborn child could fall deathly ill and be hospitalized for weeks. And, according to the March of Dimes website, approximately 12 percent of American babies are born prematurely. In short, don't battle to the death for a particular set of dates, because they may turn out not to suit you. Do, as soon as you have an offer, ask whether the tenure clock is automatically stopped for a year for the mother of a new baby, and if it isn't, consider asking for it to stop for you. Wishing you luck and joy with the baby and the job Original post: Staff person with new baby and full-time working husband ---------------------------------------------------- Hi, I’m on staff at UCLA and have a four-month-old baby. I’ve been in my current department for nearly ten years and am happy with my work. I recently came back to work after taking three months off to be at home with the baby. I thought that the time would be enough, but am having a VERY hard time balancing the time demands of my job with taking care of my son. And lack of sleep! My husband’s job is full-time and rather inflexible. My job is also full time, though I’ve been trying out an alternative schedule by going in to the office very early in the morning. Does anyone else out there have experience with working while your baby is young, and any thoughts about how to make it work successfully? I’m not sure I can last a lot longer and I miss my son. I’ve thought about quitting altogether but, somewhat guiltily, I feel like I love my work too. Response: staff person working with new baby response ------------------------------------------- I recently had my second child a boy,(now 6 months old) and I have a 3 1/2 year old daughter. With my daughter I took 4 months leave and returning to work was difficult but I was able to work out an arrangment to work 4 days / week. The extra day at home was very helpful and gave me some down time. With my son I just took 6 months leave. I have returned to work 3 days / week and I am grateful to the flexibilty my boss provided to me. It is however crazy. I am trying to fit my 40 hr / wk job into 24. I wind up working about 10/hr per week at home. Here are some things that work for me: (1) Not having to go into work 5 days. (2) Working flexible schedule (3) I hired a housekeeper (4) Staying organized (making sure I have planned the meals for the week, making meal prep easy, doing take out, having many bottles and supplies for breast pumping so I don't have to sterilize nightly. I can tell you from my experience that it does get easier but it will remain a challenge. Laurel Original post: Cal Health Plans and Fertility services ---------------------------------------------- I'm a new employee at UC Berkeley and I was hoping to get some advice about the best doctors / fertility coverage for UC Berkeley medical plans. I'm having difficulty deciding what would be best. Has anyone had experience with fertility services for: Pacific Care, BlueCross PPO, BlueCross Plus, or Healthnet? I've had experience with Kaiser Oakland and really don't want to return there, despite the level of coverage they offer. We've done everything up until insemination with them, and just aren't pleased with their lack of individualized attention to our case. I'm told Dr. Richard Chetkowski is brilliant and he's within Healthnet, but only through Bay Valley group. Chetkowski is in Berkeley, but all of the other Bay valley doctors seem to be in Hayward/Fremont area which could be a pain because we live in Oakland. PacifiCare covers the standard 50% but I haven't heard much about their fertility doctors. Does anyone have any advice? I'm 33, almost 34 and the clock is ticking. I REALLY want to conceive. It has been so awful, 2 years have passed and we are still childless. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Response: Cal Health Plan and Fertility ------------------------------------------- I don't know the other fertility doctors you mentioned but Dr. Chetkowski was brilliant in our case and IVF worked. We had been working with the UC Davis Reproductive folks as we lived in Davis then and the docs were not patient-oriented so we commuted to Berkeley to see Dr. Chet. I guess I'd recommend that you go w/ the health plan that allows you to see him altho you should network w/ others who have seen the others you mentioned. He's got a tremendous amount of experience and seems to have a real feel for what might work. Even if you end up adopting, it's good to know that you tried everything and you had a top-notch doctor. good luck! Former Patient who was lucky Response: Cal Health Plans and Fertility Service ------------------------------------------- Hello! I used Health Net with Alta Bates and Dr. Susan Willman who is with Reproductive Science. Her office is in Orinda--short drive through the tunnel. Reproductive Science's main facility is in San Ramon. I was very happy with her. Her analysis of my problem was very logical and step-by-step. I liked her nurses and medical assistants. I did IVF, which means that there were a lot of 7:00 AM appointments as I was being monitored, which was easy--against traffic to, and then no biggie back into Berkeley to work. I had to occasionally go to San Ramon, because if my appointment had to be on a weekend, that's where they took place, and egg retrieval took place there too. I too, had heard of Chetkowski, which seems more convenient because he's closer--in Berkeley, but now have twins, after 2 IVF cycles, so am very pleased, obviously. She was able to charge some of my visits directly to Health Net because they weren't totally infertility-related. And, I got a discount off of the second cycle because the first cycle didn't work. IVF with Health Net ---------------------------------------------- *New postings ---------------------------------------------- If you have advice, comments, or feedback please post a response message: http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html Balancing parenting kids with care for older parents ----------------------------------------------- First, I want to say how thrilled I am that this newsletter resource has started. There’s no other place on campuses where people can get advice or share ideas with one another about topics that are relevant to parents, or speak of difficulties in their department or with their job. And be entirely anonymous if they want to. Thanks. I would love to hear from other parents who are juggling the needs of elderly parents with day-to-day life and parenting. Because I waited to have children until my late 30s I now have school-age kids and old parents at the same time. My parents live on the east coast so I am forever trying to figure out when I can head out there and for how long. And whether to try to get them to move closer to my family so I can play a more active role in their care. But I don’t know how I could manage to spend more time than I already do! What kinds of situations do others work with? What kinds of problems and solutions have people figured out? - Laura ------------------------------------------ *Recent articles ------------------------------------------ -- feel free to post comments or discussion points about any of these, or offer new ones - http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html Stopping the Tenure Clock without Asking, by Scott Jaschik. Inside Higher Education. August 16, 2005. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/16/clock 9 Presidents Issue Statement on Gender Equity, by Scott Jaschik. Insider Higher Education. December 7, 2005. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/07/gender --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Post a message * http://parents.berkeley.edu/post.html - Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Address Changes, Help * http://parents.berkeley.edu/subscribers.html