Five female tenure track academics are spearheading a lobby action to reform maternity and paternity leave at TU Delft and other Dutch universities. Their action centres around an online petition started in June with a current signature count of 1,900.
A pregnancy can affect a researcher’s physical ability to perform at the highest level, which is expected from a tenure tracker in the competitive world of science. “The consequences are harder and more personal when you’re the woman actually having the baby and the system works against you,” said Dr. Liedewij Laan, fellow and group leader at Laanlab at the Bionano-science department of the Applied Sciences Faculty (TNW).
“When you look at female tenure trackers a very low number have children, and these are the ones that haven’t quit academia,” said Dr. Monique van der Veen, assistant professor of Catalysis Engineering at the Chemical Engineering department of TNW. However, it’s not just about women. Female academics are the lightning rod for this issue but it is really about institutions formally acknowledging that a scientific career conflicts with family life, making high demands when a couple want to have children. It’s a terrible waste of talent when women and men, decide to leave.
“We realised there is no broad policy at TU Delft in the collective labour agreement addressing the issue,” said Dr. Wioletta Ruszel, female fellow and assistant professor of applied probability at the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Faculty (EWI). “What we specifically propose is an optional one year extension per child, to compensate for the physical impact of childbirth. For the father or for adoptions the concept of added time for childcare should also be incorporated as an option. We want this as a structural regulation with the right to take it within the tenure track system.”
They set up a website, Dutch tenure track reform, and lobbied for signatures via email, collecting 1,500 after the first two weeks. The signatories are 50-50 male-female, signalling support of men who want to take care of their families. On June 21, they presented the petition to Mrs. Jet Bussemaker, Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Mrs. Josephine Scholten, director of VSNU (Association of Dutch Universities), to raise awareness and put the issue on the political agenda.
Their idea is to have TU Delft implement this reform into policy as the first university in the Netherlands and then to go nationwide with it. The five are delighted with the recently secured backing of TU Delft rector Karel Luyben. Meetings continue with VSNU and the Ministry of Education to discuss policy change.
Comments are closed.