Mothers-to-be might find it both laborious and confusing to work around Ohio University’s parental leave procedure.
The 11 members of OU’s Parental Leave Implementation Task Force hope to change that with the introduction of the Parental Leave Pilot Program during the Fall Semester.
The pilot, which was approved by OU President Roderick McDavis in June, offers expecting parents a total of 12 weeks leave, six of which include full pay.
“(McDavis) authorized the provost office and the vice president for finance and administration office to put together a team to plan for the implementation of the parental leave policy for two years,” said Ann Fidler, chief of staff to the Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding.
Betty Sindelar, associate director of physical therapy and chair of the task force, said the task force is working on the various mechanics about how to implement a parental leave policy.
“There is not a good counting at the university of how many employees actually need or would use parental leave in any given year,” Sindelar said. “The pilot will allow the university to collect that data and see what fiscal impact it has so the president and the Board of Trustees can make a permanent recommendation for parental leave.”
In April, Benoit scheduled two open forums to seek input from the university community on implementing a parental leave policy.
The session was positive and the comments given at the forum were “generally supportive,” Golding said.
OU’s office of Human Resources wants faculty and staff to fill out paperwork to enroll into the parental leave pilot program by November with benefits starting on Jan. 1, 2013, said Greg Fialko, director of benefits and human resources director.
“From a human resource perspective, we are happy to offer the additional benefit, and we are looking forward to a hopefully successful two years,” Fialko said. “It is pretty neat that the university has added this benefit.”
Sindelar said that she is proud of the parental leave pilot and thinks it makes OU one of the most progressive universities in the country.
bc822010@ohiou.edu
