University to grant automatic tenure extension to parents

Faculty members who are expecting or adopting a child will automatically be granted an extra year to pursue tenure, under a new policy announced this week. Previously, tenure-seeking professors had to request an extension when they had a child.

University administrators adopted the change because the old system discouraged faculty members — particularly women — from seeking extensions to the six-year tenure process, since requesting time could be viewed as a "sign of weakness," said Joan Girgus, who serves as assistant dean of the faculty for gender equity.

The policy will apply to both men and women and includes same-sex domestic partnerships, which are recognized by the University.

"[This policy] will affect everybody, but it is probably something that will mean more to women than to men simply because women continue to bear a larger responsibility for childcare in this day and age," said Girgus, also a professor in the psychology department.

In May, Harvard announced a similar policy of granting one-year extensions for tenure to all faculty members who are having children. MIT also grants automatic one-year extensions, but only to women who bear children.

Earlier this year, in a joint statement with the presidents of Stanford and MIT, President Tilghman emphasized the importance of encouraging more women faculty in the sciences by developing "a culture, as well as specific policies, that enable women with children to strike a sustainable balance between workplace and home."

That statement came in response to remarks by Harvard president Lawrence Summers suggesting that biological differences may explain the underrepresentation of women in the sciences. Following a flurry of criticism, Summers apologized and appointed two task forces on women faculty.

Princeton's new policy, approved at a faculty meeting in May, was recommended in 2003 by a task force on the role of women in science faculty at Princeton. The task force found that despite improvements over the last decade, the University must step up efforts to hire women in the sciences.

Drawing from an anonymous survey of assistant professors, the committee noted "considerable ambivalence about the tenure extension policy as currently implemented."

"In the survey," the report continued, "women faculty who had younger children while at Princeton . . . were much more likely than their male colleagues to view [requested] extensions [to the tenure process] as detrimental (27.8% versus 3.8%)."

Girgus said many assistant professors also brought up tenure extensions in the "additional comments" section of the survey, demonstrating the issue was significant to them.

Rebecca Burdine, an assistant molecular biology professor who is expecting her first child in October, said the new policy has allayed her anxieties about requesting a tenure extension.

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"When I interviewed for this position, the [old] policy was mentioned to me and it did impress me," she said in an email. "The fact that [tenure extensions are] now automatic is a nice change to the policy as it removes any potential worries I might have felt having to request it."

Burdine added that her colleagues at other schools still worry about how parenthood will affect their chances for tenure.

"I do have a lot of friends my age at other universities that have decided not to have children because they are not in a supportive environment," she said. "One of my friends [at another college] told me her department has made it clear that any woman who chooses to have a child is obviously not serious about their career. I feel extremely fortunate to be at Princeton where that attitude is not prevalent."