The University Senate is looking ahead to determine how best to develop policies regarding balancing work and family after a new Ad-Hoc Committee was proposed and passed Feb. 12.

The proposal for a new committee was set into motion after the Committee on Women’s Concerns was repeatedly approached by students, faculty and staff regarding issues about the balance between work, studies and life, said Marty Hanson, co-chair for the committee.

Hanson proposed the motion to develop an Ad-Hoc Committee on Family-Friendly and Work-Life Balance Concerns at the Feb. 12 meeting.  According to the official proposal, the new committee would address concerns surrounding childcare, maternity and parental leave and caregiving.

“There is a vacuum that we are trying to fill with this motion to the Senate,” Hanson said.  “We are trying to shine a spotlight and begin to identify what some of these issues are that are expressed by the university’s community members.”

USen members will have to wait until the Agenda Committee meets before any formal progress can be made. The Agenda Committee plans to meet a week from Wednesday to begin formally brainstorming what will happen with the new Ad-Hoc Committee, said Bruce Carter, chair of the Agenda Committee.

Carter said he does not know an exact timetable for when the new Ad-Hoc Committee would officially be created, but he said he hopes to have it be ready right after spring break.

First, the Agenda Committee will discuss who the members should be on the new committee, Carter said.  The Agenda Committee will then reach out and contact potential committee members prior to the next Senate meeting to see who is interested in participating.

“We are trying to put together a committee that is diverse,” Carter said.

Carter said he speculates that they will try to get a graduate student and a representative from Human Resources to be members of the committee.

“The goal is to have the committee up and running as quickly as possible,” Carter said.

Both Hanson and Carter said there is a committee called the Committee on Services to Faculty and Staff that would normally handle many of the concerns faculty, staff and students are bringing up. However, that committee is currently inactive.

Hanson said since this committee is “dead,” many people were turning to the Committee on Women’s Concerns to address problems they were facing.

“The people who approached us were having really grave problems in their life,” Hanson said. “Most of these issues were not issues that our committee was set-up to help with or qualified to.  We realized, there needs to be a different venue to have those kinds of conversations across campus.”

USen may decide that instead of creating an entirely new committee, it could resurrect the Committee on Services to Faculty and Staff, Carter said.  But that is something to be decided in the coming weeks.

Either way, Patrick Neary, president of the Graduate Student Organization, said in an email that he is excited that there will be a committee to address policies toward balancing work life and family life.

Neary attended and spoke at the USen meeting during the proposal of the new committee.  He said he was pleased with the support the faculty and staff showed during the meeting.

“They broadly agreed that graduate students are oftentimes hit hardest, and frequently fall through the cracks of these policies as they currently stand,” Neary said.

Graduate students have been discussing work and life balance issues for many years and have not see much success, but now it appears that the university is prepared to make real progress, Neary said.

“The energy in the University Senate last Wednesday was so positive and the community wants something like this to work because people are hurting,” Hanson said.  “The work life balance is a very difficult balance.”

Published on February 18, 2014 at 3:03 am

Contact Kate: kacapoda@syr.edu