Petition to the President and the Provost of Georgetown University

for FTNTL Inclusion in Georgetown University’s Main Campus Faculty

New Parent Leave Policy

Date: October 2, 2018

We the undersigned petition the President and the Provost of Georgetown University to extend the new parent leave policy available to tenure-line (TL) faculty on the Main Campus to all full-time non-tenure line faculty (FTNTL) on that campus. We consider this issue of great urgency and one that touches on both faculty and gender equity. We respectfully ask that a positive decision be made in the fall of 2018.

Background:

Georgetown University currently has two separate New Parent Leave policies for its Main Campus faculty.

Per Georgetown’s Benefits webpage: “a tenure-line Main Campus faculty member who will be the primary caregiver of a child (who is in the first year of life or newly homed child of five or younger) is eligible for one semester of paid leave.” This policy extends to both men and women and covers adoption as well.

The above policy does not apply to Georgetown’s roughly three-hundred FTNTL faculty, however. Instead, FTNTL faculty requests for new parent leave are solely addressed through the use of short-term disability benefits which are available for the birth mother only. This policy fails to explicitly address instances of adoption as well as men seeking leave to care for a new child.

As such, the university’s current separate policies draw an unnecessary distinction between tenure-line and FTNTL faculty who often work closely together in a given department or unit. Such a distinction negatively impacts any FTNTL faculty trying to have a child and creates unnecessary administrative and instructional interruptions at the departmental level.

Adding the FTNTL faculty to the tenure-line policy would streamline the process through which all faculty request new parent leave and simplify a department’s responsibility to cover a FTNTL member’s duties during their paid semester of leave. FTNTL inclusion in the tenure-line policy will also prevent students enrolled in one of our courses from having to adjust suddenly to a temporary replacement.

Said inclusion will have no impact on Georgetown’s Main Campus tenure-line faculty. It will simply extend the already existing policy for tenure-line faculty to FTNTL colleagues.

To show my support of FTNTL inclusion in the tenure-line Main Campus New Parent Leave Policy, I am adding my name to this petition.