Family-Friendly Scheduling

Hopkins CSW

Must all talks and receptions start at 5:30?

(yes, like ours did…)

Here’s a memo from the Brown University Provost’s Office with advice for scheduling talks in ways that work for more faculty members–and why it matters.

https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/provost/policies-and-procedures/family-friendly-scheduling

Don’t have time to read it right now? Here are the basics:

Best Practices for Chairs and Directors

Recognize that 5:30 is not a time at which “everyone is free.”

Acknowledge the challenges (logistically, financially, and interpersonally) that 5:30 events and late afternoon teaching blocks pose to faculty with family responsibilities.

Distinguish between programming meant to serve the broader community and programming meant to bolster the research capacity of the faculty. Programming in the latter category should happen during the workday.

Vary the times of workshops, seminars, and lectures so that the same people are not perpetually excluded.

Accommodate faculty with family responsibilities by creating opportunities for workday interactions (e.g. coffees, lunches)…

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Diversity and Inclusiveness contribute independently to employee productivity and retention

There is a lot of discussion these days at Hopkins about diversity and how important this is. Most faculty searches have increasing diversity as a mandate for hiring, while keeping excellence of course. But what will happen when all these diverse hires arrive? Will the culture adopt to become more inclusive? Or will the new faculty find that being the token woman or URM results in them feeling left out? There is much less discussion about inclusiveness, and it turns out that inclusiveness can be just as impactful as diversity.

Here’s an interesting set of data I’m working on today in preparation for the Triple Helix Science & Society talk later this afternoon, which I’m told is open to the public.

These data show that fostering an inclusive workplace can still have measurably positive impacts on employee discretionary effort and intent to stay. What’s remarkable is that this effect appears to be independent of how diverse the workplace is. That is – these two enhancements to the workplace are additive. And this is good news for departments or programs that are struggling to diversify their ranks because it means that they can still increase productivity, excellence, etc. just by making efforts to increase the inclusive nature of the workplace environment.

Data come from this website.

Science & Society

Karen is giving a presentation on Expanding Horizons of Women in STEM at the JHU Chapter of The Triple Helix this week.
This organization’s mission is to promote more dialogue about the intersectional
nature of science in society, and they publish a journal called Science in Society Review. 

You can find out more about the Triple Helix at their website and blog:
http://www.thetriplehelix.org/#

and

http://triplehelixblog.com/.

Here are the event details: Wednesday, Nov 16, 2016 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM in Hodson Room 213.

https://www.facebook.com/events/523794031165275/