Physics (Internal)

A Parental Leave Policy for Graduate Students at Boston University

This event is part of the Women in Physics Events.

Liz Ewen is a 5th year graduate student in the Biology department working with Dr. Frank Naya. Her research investigates how mutations in genes cause human diseases. She is a member of the Biology Graduate Student Association, a founding member of the Women in biology and the Chair of the Parental Leave Comittee for the graduate organization.

Liz’s talk on “A graduate student parental leave policy for Boston University” reviewed the policy currently under consideration by the BU administration. Liz, along with Elizabeth Tanner and the Women in Biology, have compiled information on parental leave policies for graduate students in place in other universities. In her talk, she discussed the need for the policy as well as the details of the proposal.

There were many questions and comments from the audience, as well as much discussion as to what we can do to get the administration to move forward with the policy. Liz mentioned that some advice that she was given by women from other universities is that we need to enlist the support of the faculty members. We decided to put together a statement which we could get faculty members from our departments to sign in support of out goals.