Pilot "Parental Teaching Release Program" for Parent/Child
Bonding by UW Faculty:
This program is being piloted for one year in select schools/colleges. It provides
a release from formal, didactic classroom instruction for biological fathers
and adoptive or foster parents to bond with a new child.
See the parental teaching release pilot page for additional information.
Background
Balance@UW began with the UW receiving a 2006 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation "Flexible Faculty Career" Award.
For the first round of this competition, the University administration completed a survey of policy availability and utilization. The UW's responses are benchmarked against other participants (PDF). Institutions that scored above the mean advanced to the second round.
Of the 52 institutions competing, 27 institutions, including the UW, advanced to the second round. For the second round of the competition, UW tenured and tenure-track faculty were asked to participate in the Faculty Survey of experiences with flexible policy options, while the administration drafted a proposal that detailed eight goals to improve the family-friendly climate at UW and to increase the use of flexible policies by faculty by the year 2008. Aggregate UW faculty responses are compared to aggregate faculty responses from other participating universities (PDF).
The UW was one of five institutions selected to receive an award.
The Flexible Faculty Career award provided a $250,000 accelerator grant to implement the "Eight by '08" goals.