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The Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility

Definition of Faculty Career Flexibility

For the purposes of the Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has suggested these policies as examples of best practices in career flexibility:

• On- and off-ramps, through leave policies.
• Extended time to tenure (tenure clock adjustment).
• Shortened time to tenure, with prorated standard of productivity.
• Active Service, Modified Duties (full-time service, with selected reduced duties).
• Part-time appointments (allowing mobility between full-time and part-time work).
• Phased retirement (partial appointments for finite periods of time).
• Delayed entry or re-entry opportunities (including practices that foster later-than-usual career starts).

Why the Need for Faculty Career Flexibility?

Since 2002, women have earned more than half of all the PhDs awarded to Americans at U.S. universities, yet fewer than half of them pursue tenure-track positions at American colleges and universities. Among those who do, only about one-third achieve tenure and less than one-quarter advance to the rank of full professor.

For the female faculty who take on tenure-track positions, the obstacles can continue. Many find that their careers are severely hampered by having and raising children, particularly during their tenure-track probationary period. In addition, women are significantly more likely than men to feel they have to sacrifice a family life to succeed in their academic careers. However, studies show that younger men want to be more involved in their family lives so this is increasingly an issue that affects men as well as women faculty. In addition, as the population ages, many faculty are called on to care for their elderly parents and relatives, so these issues affect faculty of all ages.

Given these conditions, flexible career policies and programs are becoming ever more necessary as a means of helping meet the needs of an increasingly diverse faculty. Such practices also help advance institutional goals, such as improved recruitment and retention and maintaining academic competitiveness in a global market.

For more information contact Jean McLaughlin, Research Associate, at the American Council on Education: (202) 939-9531 or jean_mclaughlin@ace.nche.edu.

Please direct questions about this page to:
jean_mclaughlin@ace.nche.edu
This page last updated on 09/14/2009