Work Life Liaison Meeting 10/27/14
Notes written by Barbara Parmenter and June Goldstein
In attendance: Susan Ernst, Nikhil Nair, Arthur Utz, Kerri Modry-Mandell, Laurie Baise, Alva Couch,
Linda Ross Girard, Molly McCanta, David Garman, Michelle Wilkerson-Jerde, Mai Vu, Sonia Hofkosh, Liz
Foster, Genevieve Walsh, Anil Saigal, John McDonald, Dilip Ninan, Hugh Gallagher, Elizabeth Remick, Lisa
Shin, Nancy Levy-Konesky, Helen Marrow, Barbara Parmenter, Barbara Brizuela, Sarah Richmond, June
Goldstein, Mary Foster, Margery Davies
Updates section
New health insurance enrollment – you must log on to eServe and make a choice of health plans or else
you will NOT have health insurance come January 1st, 2015. Health insurance does NOT roll over
automatically this year.
Long term disability insurance – the Work/Life committee urged everyone to get this as a simple thing
to do to protect yourself in case of disabling injury or illness. Barbara has confirmed that you will need to
fill out forms for evidence of insurability if you are an existing faculty member and are just enrolling in
this now or if you are going from the 40% to the 60% salary replacement level. It was brought up later in
the meeting that having LTD insurance also makes you considered a Tufts employee if you are covered
and can no longer work. That confers job security you won't have without LTD.
Changes to the teaching relief policy – following a summer nonacademic leave, the teaching relief can
be taken full-time in either fall or spring semester of the next academic year, or else half fall and half
spring.
Changes to medical leave and family illness leave policy: both can now be taken on an intermittent
basis or on a reduced work schedule. In the past they could only be taken in uninterrupted blocks.
Update on paying for non-academic leaves for grant-funded investigators and replacement funding –
the Work/Life Committee is working on this issue. We will be having a discussion about it with the
relevant deans on November 12. Scott Sahagian is interested in this issue and is pursuing it in
discussions. Mary Pat McMahon’s office is doing benchmarking of work/life policies and programs for
graduate students at other institutions.
Tufts elists for work/life issues – we handed out a sheet listing the elists for the Tufts community
dealing with work/life issues, with instructions for subscribing. Please let your colleagues know about
these. And encourage students with children to subscribe to the studentswithfamilies elist. There was a
request to put the elist document on the Work/Life Committee web site; it is now posted at
https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=67809486.
Dependent Care Needs Assessment – the committee is currently developing a survey instrument for
this, and it will be administered to all faculty, staff, grad students, and a select group of undergrads in
January 2015. Ideas for publicizing it:
1. Make sure it’s clear that this is coming from Tufts faculty, not a consulting firm
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2. How it is introduced is VERY important – the committee will work on that. E.g., “Are you
concerned about child care at Tufts? Are you worried about caring for your parents? Tufts
faculty are trying to find out the extent of our care issues…”
3. Make sure you can stop and save it, so you can restart it another time, especially if it’s long
A number of liaisons volunteered to take the pilot survey. The committee will also recruit some staff
members and students to take the pilot survey.
Update on the daycare center and status of the proposed task force – Elizabeth explained that other
schools at Tufts are not where AS&E is (e.g., no tenure-clock stoppage policy at all in the Medical School
or the Fletcher School). So the Provost would like to move forward by starting a discussion across
schools to get everyone on the same page.
 Some liaisons expressed worry that this is a stalling tactic. Elizabeth replied that the Bright
Horizons contract is 5 years, so this is a path forward to getting things right, rather than rushing.
The Work / Life committee is meeting again with the provost on this issue in November.
 Sarah Richmond suggest that the staff in other schools can be helpful – talk to the faculty affairs
people in different schools. They may be able to get metrics of who is affected. Talk with Jillian
Dubman to make introductions to current chairs of faculty affairs committees.
 Elizabeth reported that the Medical School Faculty Senate passed a resolution in support of the
open letter and expressed their willingness to send a rep to the task force. Sarah will put the
committee in touch with dental.
Issues brought up by liaisons
Using up medical leave – do you still have a job if you can’t go back to work?- Question about who to
go to when a faculty member has used up his/her medical leave and still cannot work. Who to go to?
Not clear, but start with your Dean. This is when Long-Term Disability insurance is extremely important!
If you use up your medical leave and cannot work, but you have LTD, you are still considered an active
Tufts employee, and there is the associated implication of job security with that, i.e., the possibility of
returning to your job (or a similar one) once you are able to do so.
Sarah Richmond: Laura Alix is the new leave specialist in HR but is mostly concerned with staff leave.
Still, she would be a good contact on this issue.
Comprehensive picture of costs for faculty - Discussion around whether our work/life policies and child
care options are a factor in recruitment. Housing costs may be even more important than other factors.
Margery says the two most common reasons for losing hires are spousal hire issues and cost of housing.
Concern that the administration does not understand the big picture of compensation and general costs
– housing, child care, etc. Can we try to communicate a comprehensive picture of costs for faculty?
Elizabeth notes that some universities have a faculty welfare committee. This could be a function of a
standing committee on a university-wide Faculty Senate, should there be one in the future.
Discussion for the future (Helen Marrow) - Privatization of elder care – the privatization of long-term
care facilities. This will become a bigger worry and quality concern quickly as private companies see
large returns from investing in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
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Also, keep an eye on health insurance claw-back attempts. The health insurance industry is adapting to
the new health insurance environment and trying new things, some good, some bad (e.g., shifting costs
onto users). But plans will definitely be changing in the future so pay attention.
Good news! (also from Helen) - The new intermittent leave policies are wonderful. The revised teaching
relief policies are wonderful. And the Care.com back-up care is really good, so use it if you need it!
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