Correction: In Friday’s story “Provost aims to be family-friendly,” some quotes were incorrectly attributed to France Córdova, president of Purdue University. The quotes should have been attributed to ISU Associate Provost Susan Carlson.

All mentions of Carlson’s children should have referred to the children of Kristen Constant, associate professor of materials science and engineering. All quotes about her children also should have been attributed to Constant. The Daily regrets these errors.

Iowa State has been focusing increasingly on drawing faculty with families to campus over the years.

Associate Provost Susan Carlson has been a major participant in efforts to accommodate faculty with families.

“It seems like every year we’re developing policies and paying specific attention to this,” Carlson said.

She said the university has put together a conference for fall 2008 with the theme of flexibility in faculty careers, especially those in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Top scholars and several leading proponents of flexibility in faculty careers will be attending the conference, such as the president of Purdue University, France Córdova.

Iowa State currently has a program called the ISU Advance Program, with the goal to recruit and attract more women in STEM fields.

Córdova said these departments are deciding “what they need in their departments to make it a place where people want to come and work.” Often what those departments need, Córdova said, are practices that are more accommodating of family issues.

A situation that sometimes develops in the hiring process is that a faculty candidate is married to another scholar.

Carlson said the individuals who are responsible for hiring new faculty “spend a lot of our time and quite a bit of funding” trying to figure out how to match the partners’ skills with the university community or perhaps even finding a connection in the wider community outside of – but still near – Iowa State.

“On the policy side, about a year and a half ago we adopted a policy that allows faculty to have part-time appointments,” Carlson said.

She said many universities don’t have the option for faculty to put in half time or three-quarters time at reduced pay.

This is something, Carlson said, that can be “very attractive” to new faculty members as they come to Iowa State, although the option hasn’t been used by anyone at this point.

Faculty have had the option to request an additional probationary period be added to their tenure track – which normally lasts seven years – for seven years now.

If a faculty member requests this option early enough, he or she may have an additional year before being reviewed for tenure, said Brenda Behling, program manager for the office of the executive vice president and provost.

“That’s been used increasingly by both men and women – usually for family reasons,” Carlson said.

Kristen Constant, associate professor of materials science and engineering,is a faculty member who said she might be “re-evaluating at this point whether to use some of those policies.”

Constant had two of her three children before she was tenured and said the policies weren’t necessarily laid out as well when she needed them.

“[Having children] pretty significantly impacts your life in every way, including work,” Constant said. “I’m really excited to learn more about family-friendly policies because it can impact women particularly.” Constant said the policy does, in some ways, “differentially affect women” because women carry children and some of the early infant care falls on women, however, she didn’t leave fathers out of the discussion.

“It’s important for us at Iowa State to realize that, certainly, the arrival of a child impacts dads, too.”

When Carlson had her last child nine years ago, the policy used for her situation was actually contained within the sick leave policy, which made it challenging to manage, she said.

“When you’re pregnant, you’re really not sick,” Carlson said. “It’s part of life.”

She said she thinks it is important for all these policies, such as part-time statuses or prolonged tenure tracks, to be supported by the university community as a whole.

“Even if the administration supports the policy, your peers need to support the policy,” Carlson said.