Chris Torres
As many family members need additional home care due to the pandemic, the CSUN faculty is seeking assistance so that they can focus on their work.
Due to the limited vacation options this semester, the CSUN faculty and staff with care responsibilities at home are working with the administration to create more accommodation.
As the coronavirus pandemic resulted in schools being closed, working parents with young children had to take responsibility for care in addition to their regular responsibilities. People with family members who have become ill or have been displaced have also been placed in the role of caregivers.
Vacation options have eased the burden on many caregivers, but some of those options have been exhausted.
In March of last year, the federal government passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. It contained the Law Extending Family Leave and Medical Leave, which entitles eligible employees with care responsibilities up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
Coronavirus paid administrative leave is another vacation option created in response to the pandemic. It was only available to CSU employees.
CPAL and FFCRA both expired on December 31, 2020.
Associate Professor of Communication Science Jinah Kim is a faculty member who benefited from the Law to Extend Family and Sick Leave. As a mother of two young children whose schools were closed due to the pandemic, Kim taught one course instead of her usual four last semester.
“[EFMLEA] made it possible for me to take care of my children, ”said Kim.
Without the same options as before, some faculty members have more problems this semester, which leads to the creation of a petition.
This petition was created by multiple organizers and endorsed by the Faculty’s Senate Education Committee. Motions on the petition include an extension of paid vacation benefits for employees with caring responsibilities, a break in the work of the faculty committee, and an end to the tenure delay.
The petition also highlighted how women of particular color are struggling during the pandemic.
“[People of color] have to go out and work. They must because of the way we have structured society and women are usually the main caregivers, ”said Martha Escobar, professor in the Department of Chicana / o Studies and Chair of the Committee on Educational Equity. “If you look at this crossbreed, women of skin color are disproportionately affected.”
Several faculty members noted what a lack of caregiver housing could mean for posterity of women of color in academia.
“I think that in a few years time, when we find that skin color women and mothers are not the ones with tenure or leadership roles in college, we will point out how we could have been truly proactive at that moment around these communities to protect, ”said Kim, who helped draft the petition.
On February 8, several organizers and the Educational Equity Committee met with Provost Mary Beth Walker to discuss the requests made in the petition.
The high likelihood that CSUN will receive more funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act has been discussed. If the university’s application is approved, a large percentage of it is likely to be used for study grants.
Provost Walker did not respond to a request for comment.
No final decisions were made at the meeting on how the funds might be used to support the caregivers.
The organizers expressed a desire to be part of the decision-making process and plan to push for transparency in the options available to faculties, staff and students.
In the meantime, CSUN is making several resources available for eligible faculties and staff with supervisory responsibilities.
The Family and Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act are still available to eligible employees. Employees can also be entitled to vacation under their collective agreements.
The Office of Human Resources also offers free advice, advice and a Zoom self-help group called “Parenting in a Pandemic” through LifeMatters @ CSUN. This semester, “Working Parent Brownbag” sessions will be held via Working Zoom, which will also be offered by the HR department to provide working parents with a forum to discuss their challenges.
More recently, CSUN gave the faculty the option to hire teaching assistants only for spring 2021. These paid PhD students can support supervising faculties and large class sizes by teaching classes, grading assignments, or teaching students.
Escobar criticizes this response, saying that the extra work it takes to train a teaching assistant and the time it takes to get one approved may defeat the purpose.
Regardless of which decisions are made to support the supervisors working at CSUN this semester, the organizers have stated that their advocacy of women, women of skin color and supervisors in the academic field is far from complete.
“I hope we can have this bigger conversation and it goes on,” said Escobar. “Systemic changes don’t come in a day.”
Comments are closed.