To: UC Families From: UC Families Subject: UC Families Newsletter April 17, 2006 April 17, 2006 UC Families Newsletter Circulation: 750 Moderator: Karie Frasch email: ucfam@lists.berkeley.edu Website: http://parents.berkeley.edu/ucfamilies Post a Message: http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html MODERATOR NOTE: Our subscriber base for UC Families is continuing to grow, but more slowly outside of the bay area. If you are a subscriber at a non-Berkeley campus and know of others who may be interested in this newsletter please consider sending them the link to the website – http://parents.berkeley.edu/ucfamilies - or forwarding them the newsletter. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------- Contents ---------------------------------------------- *Responses Original post: Insurance for grad students' families Original post: Strategies for Spousal Hire Original post: Changes to family accommodation policies for all UC ladder-rank faculty, effective immediately *New postings Graduate Student: Question about leave UC Berkeley Childcare - Time Your Baby Right Repost: Babies and Fieldwork *News/media How to Lobby Your Employer for Adoption Benefits: For working people who want to adopt, the need to take time off without pay may put adoption beyond your financial means The Apparently Bearable Unhappiness of Academe Academic AWOL *New members Since 4/6/06 ---------------------------------------------- *Responses ---------------------------------------------- You can post additional responses at: http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html Original post: Insurance for grad students' families ------------------------------------------- Recently in recruiting a potential grad. student, I discovered that Berkeley is at a disadvantage when it comes to providing health insurance for spouses, domestic partners and children of graduate students. Apparently, we provide only a link to private insurance plans. Yale (from which this student also had a good offer) provides an optional health insurance package for families of graduate students. The students pay extra, but at below market rate. Shouldn't a family friendly university system include this in its package of benefits? How expensive is additional coverage and how do grad. students across the campus pay for it? Response: Insurance for grad students' families ------------------------------------------- You're right: UC Berkeley provides no insurance coverage for grad students' families; we're left on our own. Much as we're left on our own to find housing we can afford, while UC is systematically demolishing the affordable family student housing. (Can you tell I'm a little bitter?) In my family, my husband and son each have their own insurance. We can do this because my husband, who's self-employed, has a reasonable income. My husband has a medical savings account and a high-deductible plan (premium is $111/mo). Our son is enrolled in a Blue Shield HMO plan at $157/mo. Deductibles and premiums keep going up, though. Most of the students I know who don't have working spouses enroll their kids in Healthy Families (state sponsored insurance for kids); I'm not sure what the adults do. Hope this helps! Anon Response: Insurance for grad students' families ------------------------------------------- You are correct in stating that the UC Berkeley Student Health Insurance Office provides information about private (and government-subsidized) plans for dependents and spouses of students. In the past we offered an optional dependent health care plan; however, the plan was not sustainable. Our experience with optional plans is that mainly families with ongoing health needs and no other insurance options enroll, and there is not a large enough pool of enrollees to ensure that the premiums cover the expenses of the plan. In this situation, there is no way to offer a premium that is below-market and competitive with larger private plans. On most campuses that have dependent plans, the plans are subsidized either by the campus (likely at a private school such as Yale) or by other students through increased premiums on the student health insurance plan. Neither of these options has been feasible at Berkeley in recent years; however, we have successfully met families' needs by referring to the individual plans. The cost of private dependent insurance varies according to the number of enrollees, the ages of the dependents, and the benefit structure of the plan. There are a number of plans from which to choose. The University Health Services' web site is a good place to start: http://www.uhs.berkeley.edu/students/insurance/families.sht ml. Feel free to call the Student Health Insurance Office, 642-5700, with any questions. Response: Insurance for Grad student families ------------------------------------------- We ran into many problems with insurance for our family. I am a grad student caring for 3 young children. My partner works so we didn't qualify for any of the programs for low- income families (i.e., Healthy Families). After much research and several insurance policies, we opted for a catastrophic policy through Health Net. We pay the first $6K out-of-pocket before any benefits kick in. Not what we wanted, but we were priced out of other individual policies with premiums, co-pays and deductibles. If both parents are students or the family meets the income requirements for low income qualification, Healthy Families is what many grad student families use. There needs to be a better solution... Anon Original post: Strategies for Spousal Hire ------------------------------------------- I would be interested in hearing how UC faculty members with academic spouses have tried to obtain long-term employment for their spouse. I have spoken with the chair of my department about my situation (my spouse is interested in a permanent lecture position, not a tenure-track one in my department) and he has told me that he has communicated with my dean. But nothing concrete has happened. Have faculty in similar situations approached their deans directly or their offices of faculty equity? Or is the only strategy to go back on the academic job market for leverage? I have observed that the UC system policy regarding spousal employment is uneven. Although UC-conducted studies have acknowledged that this is a problem, I observe that some spousal hires are made, and some are not. My spouse has also been looking at UC resources such as HERC (which advertises academic positions in CA regions) to obtain employment elsewhere, but has been unsuccessful. Anon Response: Strategies for Spousal Hire ------------------------------------------- I don't have a spouse needing a partner hire, but I did want to chime in and say that from my observations UC Davis has an excellent record hiring partners, at least in the Humanities. We've also profited from UC Berkeley's unwillingness to do so by hiring away some great people. This may be because Davis is pretty isolated geographically, but it's made for good retention. Elizabeth Original post: Changes to family accommodation policies for all UC ladder-rank faculty, effective immediately -------------------------------------------------- On February 8, 2006, the President of the University of California announced major changes to family accommodation policies for ladder-rank faculty throughout the system. These changes, effective retroactively to January 1, 2006, provide for the first time, a comprehensive package of family friendly policies for women and men with caregiving responsibilities. One of the most significant changes to the family friendly package is the unambiguous message that faculty men and women, with substantial caregiving responsibilities, are entitled to the use of family accommodation policies, and may not be disadvantaged or prejudiced in promotions or advancement. The new family accommodations package is designed to support faculty over their life course. Birth mothers receive fully-paid childbearing leave. New parent caregivers, birth or adoptive, are entitled to a full term of ASMD; biological mothers receive a second term. The cost of replacement teachers is centralized to eliminate hardship for individual departments. Assistant professors who are new parents can automatically stop the tenure clock for one year (up to two years during the probationary period). All parents may at any time request up to a year of unpaid parental leave. And all faculty, pre- and post-tenure, may negotiate with their department to work part-time, temporarily or permanently, to accommodate their family needs. UC is now the leader among institutions of higher education in the United States on family friendly policies. While many other universities offer some of these policies, or additional ones we don’t have (such as a formal dual career program), none provide as comprehensive a package. What do you think about these changes? Do they go far enough? Will faculty feel safe using them when tenure and promotion are at stake? What must UC do to encourage faculty with caregiving responsibilities to take advantage of these policies? Will this persuade more women and men graduate students to pursue academic jobs at UC? Here is the link to the letter from President Dynes announcing the policies, and to the policy changes (the UC Families Newsletter is highlighted in his letter): http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/coordrev/policy/PP020806APMs.pdf -UC Families Moderator Response: not friendly enough towards adoptive families ------------------------------------------- I just want to second the message that was posted about leave for adoptive parents of newborn children. UC could truly prove itself a leader in creating a family-friendly workplace by creating policies (for both faculty and staff) that do not treat adoptive parents as second-rate or second-best. As staff, I had access to neither disability leave nor paid sick leave when I adopted a newborn baby. (I was informed that I could use the latter only if the baby was sick. Apparently being one-day-old does not qualify as a pressing need for care). Whatever vacation I had accrued and unpaid leave were my only options, and being unpaid for any length of time was not really an option, with all of our savings poured into covering the high cost of adoption. UC can and should do better than this. happy mom, frustrated employee ---------------------------------------------- *New postings ---------------------------------------------- You can post a response message: http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html Graduate Student: Question about leave ------------------------------------------- Hi All, I am a pregnant graduate student taking my 2nd quals on April 17th. I am due to give birth at the beginning of September, so will be unable to teach Fall quarter. I looked into taking a maternity leave and it actually seems like a pretty bad deal (I will have to pay for health insurance and be unable to take out loans; my partner is a part-time adjunct, so there will not be a flow of money coming in). I was wondering if anyone has had success with a leave or has found an alternative that does not involve paying full fees. Thanks in advance for any tips. Additionally, anyone else out there just starting a family? Jessica UC Berkeley Childcare - Time Your Baby Right ------------------------------------------- This is a message for all grad student prospective parents trying to figure out when is the best time to have a baby with the least disruption to your studies. If you want to use the UC Berkeley Childcare program, make sure you DON'T have your baby in Fall. The Berkeley program only admits infants of certain ages (older than 3 months at start of Fall semester, older than 7 months at start of Spring), which means that if you have a baby in the Fall, you will not qualify until the following Fall. What is more, as we are currently learning, you probably won't get in the following Fall because those already in the program have priority, and the program is heavily over subscribed. My partner and I are both international grad students who earn step 1 or 2 GSR rates and we are being told there is a good chance our daughter won't get in this coming Fall. Who is the UC Childcare supposed to be for if not families like ours? Repost: Babies and Fieldwork ------------------------------------------- Hello - I have a 7 month old son, and plan on taking my QE's next spring, when he'll be about a year and a half old. Students in my department without children usually take a year abroad after their QE's to do research. I'm wondering if any of you have experience with taking very young kids abroad. I would be going to do library and museum research in a clean, modern city, so I'm not worried about taking my son there for any health or safety reasons. Mostly I'm worried about what my spouse will do. Should I expect him to come with us (he could take a year of leave from work, or even retire early)? Or will he be miserable in a foreign country where he isn't working and I've got my own thing going? Or, should I just take my son and expect my husband to come visit? I guess a third option would be for me to just go alone. I'm wondering how other people have handled this and what the pros and cons have been. Thanks! Elisabeth ------------------------------------------ *Articles and media ------------------------------------------ You can post comments or discussion points about any of these, or offer new ones - http://parents.berkeley.edu/post_ucfam.html How to Lobby Your Employer for Adoption Benefits: For working people who want to adopt, the need to take time off without pay may put adoption beyond your financial means, By Elizabeth A. Mair Adoptive Families http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=168 The Apparently Bearable Unhappiness of Academe, By Rebecca Steinitz Inside Higher Education, March 28, 2006 http://www.insidehighered.com/workplace/2006/03/28/steinitz Academic AWOL, By Mary McKinney Inside Higher Education, March 1, 2006 http://www.insidehighered.com/workplace/2006/03/01/mckinney --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Post a message * http://parents.berkeley.edu/post.html - Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Address Changes, Help * http://parents.berkeley.edu/subscribers.html