By academic standards, Rebecca R. Richards-Kortum has it made. She is a full professor of bioengineering at Rice University, runs a thriving cancer-research laboratory, and is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. But with four children at home, she sometimes feels like an academic outcast. In fact, Ms. Richards-Kortum says…

Like most university presidents, Irvin D. Reid is used to having his wife at his side during important events at Wayne State University. She has been here to help greet donors during celebrations of the capital campaign and has attended every football homecoming game during his decade-long presidency. But since last month, Mr. Reid has been…

Results of a new survey of family-friendly benefits by the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor show that stopping the tenure clock has become the most common family-friendly benefit in higher education, following paid maternity leave. Other family-friendly policies that top the list in academe allow…

The University of California campuses are among a small but growing number of research universities adopting new policies--or reinvigorating old ones--that allow tenure-track and tenured professors to work part time. Typically, professors interested in scaling back their work want more time to care for young children, a sick relative, or an aging…

Increasingly women in nearly all sports are either leaving intercollegiate coaching or never entering in the first place. While most concern over women's sports has focused on the opportunities that federal equity laws have offered to female players--whose numbers have grown steadily--the ranks of female coaches have quietly dwindled. Last year…

Discusses how the American Association of University Professors wants colleges to give scholars who have newborns extra time before tenure reviews. There appears to be a reluctance of the part of faculty to take advantage of such policies, however, because of fear of being stigmatized. (EV)

Two factors are fueling college faculty interest in at-home sabbaticals: the rise of the two-career family, and technological advances that allow faculty to communicate with colleagues from home. Critics feel that to take full advantage of sabbatical leave, faculty should leave the home area. One institution has created a seven-week sabbatical for…