University of Connecticut faculty have expressed their frustration with university administrations over paid family leave policies.
UConn molecular and cell biology professor Sarah Hird published an op-ed in the CT Mirror on Oct. 21 stating that faculty “gets zero days of guaranteed paid family leave,” which warranted a response from University Spokesperson Stephanie Reitz rebutting the claim.
Hird said in the op-ed that while administrators and graduate students are guaranteed paid family leave, it is not guaranteed for professors. It is instead up to the discretion of each college at UConn, which has its own policies for paid family leave. Hird wants that effort to be guaranteed across all of UConn.
She summarized her difficult postpartum experiences and the challenge of teaching a class following the birth of her children, which could impact student learning. She said that if professors are guaranteed paid family leave, it could recruit and retain faculty, creating a stronger university.
“[Without guaranteed paid family leave,] we get worse educators in the classroom, less creative and less productive scientists in the lab, unreliable committee members and poor decision makers,” Hird said in the op-ed.
Reitz emphasized in her response on Oct. 24 that UConn is following all federal and state laws for its employees, which includes job-protected family and medical leave.
Reitz explained every tenured and tenured-track employee is entitled to six months of paid leave for their medical condition, along with clinical, in-residence and extension faculty with at least three years of UConn employment. She said that employees with qualifying medical conditions, including recovering from childbirth and other conditions like postpartum depression, would be granted six to eight weeks of paid leave. Tenured-track faculty are granted an additional year on their tenure clock if they have taken qualified family or medical leave as well.
For faculty not yet eligible for six months of paid leave, six to eight weeks is typically granted, she said.
“UConn is aware of no cases in which a faculty member or any other employee was expected to return to work only a short duration after giving birth,” Reitz said in the op-ed.
In a follow-up interview with Hird, she talked about her response to Reitz, which was published by UConn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, emphasizing how good paid family leave policy should exceed “the bare legal minimum.”
Hird said while some faculty have six months of medical leave available to them, it does not include healthy post-partum mothers, fathers, non-birthing mothers and adoptive parents that are not experiencing a qualifying medical condition.
“Of course you follow the law, and that’s great, but the law has a very low bar for how to treat parents,” Hird said. “When we require excellence from students, staff, faculty… there’s no reason we can’t have excellence coming from the administration and from our policies as well.”
She explained how UConn College of Liberal Arts and Sciences used to have a better policy which released a professor from their teaching obligation during the semester in which the event occurs or the following academic year semester, while guaranteeing six to eight weeks of paid leave. This was taken away in January 2024.
This is not Hird’s first time advocating for better parental leave policies — she has been involved in the efforts for over two years.
In a letter addressed to administrators, which she co-wrote with 19 other women and was signed by over 200 people in 2023, she called for 12 weeks of paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child, to be standardized across all UConn colleges and schools.
“It is emotionally and physically draining to be a professor…you’re responsible for the education of between 10 and 300 young minds,” Hird said. “If you had asked me to be in front of a classroom at six weeks postpartum… it would not have been good for anybody.”
Following the letter, UConn released a new modified duties policy in January 2024 to standardize regulations. The policy allowed faculty to request out-of-classroom duties that could be more flexible as opposed to teaching.
Hird said the modified duties policy did not address anything stated in her letter and was warranted with further frustration.
This year, UConn AAUP asked for 16 weeks of paid parental leave at a press conference in February, where professors discussed their concerns with current leave policies, which vary by college, according to previous reporting by the Daily Campus.
State Senator Mae Flexer voiced her support at the conference and said it was wrong that public employees — which include UConn faculty — were not granted the same guarantee of paid family and medical leave compared to others.
Hird said since the press conference did not receive a response from the administration, she decided to write the op-ed to make noise.
“I’m frustrated they don’t seem to respond to anything,” she said. “And so I was very surprised when I saw that they had responded [to the op-ed], like I was shocked.”