UF receives $250,000 grant to enhance faculty career flexibility

September 25, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida is among five universities to receive the 2006 Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility.

The others are Duke University, Lehigh University, University of California (Berkeley and Davis campuses) and University of Washington.

Each award includes a $250,000 accelerator grant that will enable the universities to expand, promote and enhance flexible career paths for faculty. The awards recognize research universities for their leadership and accomplishments in implementing groundbreaking policies and practices supporting career flexibility for tenured and tenure-track faculty.

UF will use its award to introduce initiatives designed to establish additional policies, stimulate cross-campus discussions, standardize practices and encourage career flexibility choices. A centralized administrative leaders’ academy, a Presidential Council on Diversity and the Status of Women, and a Dual Career Services Program are among other new initiatives.

Associate Provost Debra Walker King said UF’s goal is threefold: to increase the number of faculty using existing policies and programs; to meet professional life course and diversity challenges with opportunity; and to widen acceptance of faculty career flexibility.

“For us this means providing multiple points of career entry, exit and re-entry free from fear of penalty, cultural backlash or undue professional compromise and personal loss,” she said. “This is why we are so enthusiastic about the opportunity the Sloan Award provides.”

The awards program was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE) with support from the Families and Work Institute.

“One in five eligible research universities applied for the 2006 Sloan Awards,” said Claire Van Ummersen, ACE vice president, Center for Effective Leadership. “The high level of participation reflects a nationwide trend and is evidence of the significance that college and university leaders are placing on career flexibility as a positive factor in influencing the recruitment and retention of valued faculty, particularly women and underrepresented minorities.”

The awards program was open to the 259 research extensive and intensive universities as defined in the 2000 Carnegie Classifications. In all, 55 institutions participated in the first round and 25 institutions advanced to the second round.

Applicants were evaluated in a two-part process. During the first round, an institutional survey about the career flexibility offered to tenured and tenure-track faculty (excluding medical schools) was completed. The second round included a faculty survey and development of a university-wide plan for accelerating the development and use of career flexibility programs among faculty. Among the issues considered were faculty recruitment and retention; strengthening faculty commitment, engagement and morale; achieving institutional excellence; and maintaining academic competitiveness in a global market.

A blue ribbon panel of retired university and higher education association presidents, chancellors, and chief executive officers reviewed and rated the plans.

Founded in 1918, ACE is the major coordinating body for all the nation’s higher education institutions, representing more than 1,600 college and university presidents, and more than 200 related associations, nationwide. It seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives. For more information, visit www.acenet.edu.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation makes grants in science, technology and the quality of American life. Its Workplace, Workforce, and Working Families Program raises awareness throughout higher education of the need to create, implement and enhance career flexibility policies and practices that support faculty throughout their careers. For more information, visit www.sloan.org.

Families and Work Institute is a nonprofit center for research that conducts extensive research on the changing workforce, changing family and changing community. Founded in 1989, FWI’s research typically takes on emerging issues before they crest. The Institute offers some of the most comprehensive research on the U.S. workforce available. For more information, visit www.familiesandwork.org.