COVID-19 has caused many people to re-evaluate how they think about their careers and their families. As such, the Athena working group, alongside a Faculty Senate sub-committee, has pushed towards changing the University of Idaho’s parental leave policy to give workers more benefits.
Currently, UI provides 12 weeks of unpaid non-Family and Medical Leave Act leave only if the employee in question is 180 days out from their date of hire. However, it is also expected that the employees use at least 80 hours of accumulated leave before tapping into their parental leave.
Athena has seen the need for better benefits and has proposed 12 weeks of paid leave to be available at the point of hire.
“The entire committee is made up of people who are passionate about this,” Laurel Meyer, co-vice president of Athena, said. “Some of us have kids, some of us don’t have kids, some of us are never planning on having children and some of us are. Collectively, we are coming from a place of personal experiences of the struggle of not having a paid parental leave policy.”
This struggle is also shown in the group’s collection of stories, where they feature multiple current and former Vandal staff, highlighting their struggles.
One of the stories is from Ryanne Pilgeram, an associate professor in the Department of Culture, Society and Justice. Pilgeram found out that she was pregnant the day she was offered her job at UI, and when she asked to be deferred, she was denied. While continuing work in her third trimester, she had to move filing cabinets. Eventually, Pilgeram went into labor in the middle of a faculty meeting. She also was only able to take four weeks of disability leave to take care of herself and her child who developed asthma and was nearly diagnosed as ‘failure to thrive.’
“2010/2011 was one of the hardest years of my life,” Pilgeram stated in a letter to Athena. “But it needn’t have been that hard. I want to sit with women who are considering joining the faculty or staff and who have confided that they want to start families and tell them UI will have their backs—that they are worth investing 12 weeks in.”
“It’s hard to witness things like that,” Meyer said. “Especially as a supportive colleague. It’s hard when your spouse is going through it, and it’s hard when you’re going through it.”
Meyer has also been pregnant herself under the current parental leave policy.
“I gave birth in October of 2020, in what we thought at the time was the middle of the pandemic,” Meyer said. “It was very difficult to face the reality of taking all my FMLA now to be home and bond with my son and then go back to work. What happens if I get sick and then can’t afford to take sick leave if I used all my sick leave? It’s a really hard decision to make, because you don’t know what the best choice is.”
UI is the only public higher learning institution in the state without paid parental leave, meeting only the federal requirement of 12 weeks unpaid. Boise State University, Idaho State University, and Lewis-Clark State University offer eight weeks of paid parental leave to employees and faculty, placing UI at the bottom of the pile.
This measure has also gained student support. The Society for Human Resources Management submitted a brief to ASUI in support of the measure, which was then used to draft a resolution to urge UI to enact the changes to the parental leave policy. This resolution passed unanimously on Oct. 6, after review and testimony was shared with the officers.
“I was disappointed in the university that we were the only ones without paid parental leave, but not surprised,” ASUI President Kallyn Mai said. “The university is sometimes falling behind in the more progressive initiatives, as with the state as a whole, so it wasn’t shocking that we were the last to make this change.”
Athena’s next steps are in working with the Office of the General Counsel for the university, where a version of the policy will be formed to fit into the existing policy. However, this piece is tricky.
“A lot of these policies are killed in general counsel,” Meyer said. “We are trying really hard to keep up engagement in the meantime, so it doesn’t fade away.”
Athena does not yet have a date set to present in front of the Faculty Senate but hope to this semester.
Correction: This article has been updated to more accurately describe Ryanne Pilgeram’s experience with parental leave.
Abigail Spencer can be reached at [email protected]