Dear colleagues,
We’re writing to share some good news about positive changes to Rice’s policies that better reflect the family-friendly climate that we are continuously striving to create and improve upon at Rice. These enhancements were approved by the Faculty Senate in the spring and recently signed by President DesRoches.
As a result of these changes to the faculty leave policies for both tenured and tenure-track faculty (Policy 204) and nontenure-track faculty (Policy 205):
- Paid Parental Leave replaces Primary Caregiver Leave, which:
- Removes the requirement to submit a Primary Caregiver Affidavit;
- Expands access to the leave to include both parents and not just the primary caregiver; and
- If both partners work at Rice, both are able to take full parental leave and can even stagger their leaves to maximize their child’s time with them.
- Paid parental leave is available to any faculty adopting any child under the age of 18. Previously, parents could only take paid leave when adopting a child younger than 1 year old.
- Faculty members who are adopting children have been granted more flexibility than the previous 30-day minimum notice requirement.
- The available time to take parental leave has been expanded from nine months after the birth or adoption to any time before the end of the second full fall/spring semester. This change helps guarantee that every parent will be able to take full advantage of their leave, for example, by not penalizing mid-semester additions to the family. It also benefits faculty members who want to stagger their leave with their partner’s leave.
The enhancements to Rice’s parental leave policies mark major progress for gender equity on campus and a major move toward supporting a wide variety of diverse families. This is especially true for our expansion of leave eligibility to include adopting older children, which is a challenging undertaking that we want to support as a university.
Because of this team effort, Rice will have one of the most comprehensive paid parental leave programs in the state of Texas.
These changes stem from the efforts of the Family Leave Working Group, established by President DesRoches and led by Philip Kortum, and the Reproductive Health Working Group, co-chaired by myself (Amy) and Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman. We’d like to thank the members of both groups for their time and leadership, as well as the students, staff and faculty members who advocated for these enhancements to our policies.
You can review Policy 204 for tenured and tenure-track faculty and Policy 205 for nontenure-track faculty on Rice’s website.
Warm regards,
Amy Dittmar, Howard R. Hughes Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
C. Fred Higgs III, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs