The Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility
Background
Research, conducted over the last decade and by a range of
institutions, provides compelling evidence that higher education
institutions can demonstrate a strong business case for providing
flexibility for their tenure-track and tenured faculty. Flexibility
constitutes an effective tool for recruiting and retaining talented
faculty. Career flexibility is especially critical to retaining some of
the most qualified female PhDs in academe. Acquiring the best talent is
essential to an institution's ability to achieve excellence and maintain
its competitive advantage in a global environment.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has played a vital role in developing
the field of work-family scholarship through its Workplace, Workforce,
and Working Families program. In 2003, the Foundation partnered with the
American Council on Education (ACE) to raise awareness throughout higher
education of the need to create, implement, or enhance policies and
procedures designed to support faculty lives throughout their
careers.
Creating Options
In February of 2005, ACE developed An
Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty
Careers. ACE and the national panel of presidents and chancellors
outlined an ambitious agenda to reform and enhance the academic career
path for tenured and tenure-track faculty.
"Colleges and universities face a compelling need for change in the
current rigid structure of the traditional academic career path," said
David Ward, president of ACE. "In order for American higher education to
sustain its leading role in a diverse and changing environment, we need
to create greater flexibility in the tenure-track career path.
Flexibility is central to recruiting and retaining the most talented
scholars and critical to preserving excellence in teaching and
innovative research."
The report was the first product of a grant to ACE from the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation to fund the project: Creating
Options: Models for Flexible Tenure-Track Career Pathways. Through
the project, ACE and the national panel are striving to: raise awareness
of faculty work-life issues, spark a national dialogue to encourage
change in the career cycles of tenured and tenure-track faculty, and to
generate thoughtful, tested approaches to assist campuses in adapting
promising practices to address faculty work-life issues.
First Round of Sloan Awards—Research Universities
Building on the successes of ACE's Creating
Options: Models for Flexible Faculty Career Pathways project, and
the Families
and Work Institute (FWI) When Work Works project, the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation partnered with ACE and FWI to develop The Alfred P.
Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility. The purpose of this Awards
program was to push institutional efforts toward broader implementation
and evaluation of structural and cultural changes needed at research
universities to create more flexible career paths and to make academic
careers compatible with family caregiving responsibilities. In September
of 2005, five universities were granted these awards; Duke University,
Lehigh University, University of California (Berkeley and Davis
campuses), University of Florida, and University of Washington.
Each award included a $250,000 accelerator grant that will enable the
universities to expand and enhance flexible career paths for faculty. In
addition, Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, each was awarded $25,000 grants in recognition of innovative
practices in career flexibility.
Pilot Group
ACE will also work with a Pilot
Group of liberal arts colleges and small and medium-sized masters'
institutions to see how practices at the larger institutions are
adaptable to those campuses. These campuses will be advised by a
separate advisory committee, who have specialized knowledge of the
liberal arts college sector.
Second Round of Sloan Awards—Master's Large Institutions
Building on continued success from the first round of awards, in
2006, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, ACE, and FWI conducted another
round of awards to master's large institutions, as designated by the
2005 Carnegie Classification. Six universities of this
type received $200,000 accelerator awards, enabling them to continue
creating flexible career paths that advance their institutional goals.
These institutions were Boise State University (ID), Canisius College
(NY), Santa Clara University (CA), San Jose State University (CA),
Simmons College (MA), and the University of Baltimore (MD).
In addition, Benedictine University (IL) and Plymouth State
University (NH) will receive $25,000 awards in recognition of innovative
practices in career flexibility.
Questions about this project can be directed to Gloria Thomas,
Associate Director, at gloria_thomas@ace.nche.edu
or at (202) 939-9404.
Please direct questions about this page to:
jean_mclaughlin@ace.nche.edu
This page last updated on 07/22/2008
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