Faculty Work-Life Integration Resources

ISU’s Flexible Faculty Programs are designed to support faculty as they balance their professional responsibilities and personal needs.

Flexible Faculty Programs

Universities must attract and retain the best faculty in order to foster excellence in teaching, research, and outreach. Competition for the best faculty is intense. The availability of flexible and family-friendly programs can make the difference in recruiting and retaining faculty.

Managing Family Needs

Faculty face a difficult balancing act in combining family and work commitments. To help meet this challenge, the university provides leave for certain family situations. This leave may be partial or full, paid or unpaid, as specified in these guidelines.

Faculty Modified Duties Assignment (FMDA)

Iowa State offers Faculty Modified Duties Assignments to tenured and tenure-eligible faculty associated with the birth or adoption of a child, or the foster care placement of a child.

Dual Career Resources

Dual Career Resources, managed by the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, aims to provide spouses/partners of faculty and senior administrators with support in identifying employment opportunities both on campus and in the community.

Extension of the Probationary Period (tenure-clock extension)

Iowa State University recognizes the challenges that untenured faculty face as they strive to earn tenure through achievement in teaching, research, and outreach. The extension of the tenure clock policy (Faculty Handbook 5.2.1.4) allows a faculty member to request an extension of the standard probationary period in a range of special circumstances.

Partner Opportunity Hire

As part of the faculty recruitment process, the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost may partner with colleges to provide salary support for partner opportunity hires. The hire may entail a tenured/tenure-eligible, term faculty, or P&S appointment.

Faculty Work-Life Advisory Committee

Charge

The Faculty Work/Life Advisory Committee advises the Senior Vice President and Provost as chief academic officer on faculty issues of managing professional and personal lives. A key goal is to identify ways to maintain a university environment that leads to effective recruitment, retention, and advancement of faculty. The Committee will make use of faculty-related data available through the COACHE Faculty Satisfaction Survey. The Committee will conduct ongoing review of current policies and practices and identify gaps or ineffective policies and practices. It will work with faculty, staff, and administrators with responsibilities for these issues to enhance current policies, practices, and training and/or design new resources.

Membership

The Assistant Provost for Faculty Success will chair the committee. The members of the committee represent each academic college; tenure-eligible, tenured, and term faculty are eligible to serve. At least one member shall be a faculty senator. A department chair shall also serve on the committee. Members will serve three-year terms, renewable once.

Work-Life Integration Resources

Utilize Iowa State University’s National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity membership to access these recorded webinars. Login with your Iowa State University credentials.

1. Resting to Rise: Reduce Burn Out, Find Your Joy for Writing and Life, and Create a Just Academia
Benita Jackson and Karen Brody

2. Academic Life: What's Mindfulness and Compassion Got To Do With It?
Angela Rose Black

3. How to Find Your Pillars of Genius
Christi Cooke

Hear from other work-life authors and speakers in these resources.

1. Job Crafting: How Individuals Revision Work (Video)
Amy Wrzesniewski
Research interests: “focus on how people make meaning of their work in difficult contexts (e.g., stigmatized occupations, virtual work, absence of work), and the experience of work as a job, career, or calling.”

2. Authenticity on One’s Own Terms (Video)
Patricia Faison Hewlin
Research interests: “how organization members and leaders engage in authentic expression, as well as factors that impede authenticity in every day work interactions.”

3. What Works for Women at Work
Joan Williams
Creator of the “ideal worker norm. “Path-breaking work helped create the field of work-family studies and modern workplace flexibility policies.”

4. Dr. Kelly Ward or Dr. Lisa Wolf-Wendel
Academic Motherhood: How Faculty Manage Work and Family

5. Christina Carter, PhD: The Sweet Spot (Video)
Christine Carter, speaker and author
The Sweet Spot: How to Achieve More by Doing Less

6. Sabine Sonnentag
Research Interests: “how individuals can stay healthy, energetic, and productive at work, even when they face a high level of job stressors.”

7. Find a favorite podcast on work-life balance.