SUBJECT:

Dependent Care Travel Grants for Senate Faculty

As Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (EVC-AA), I am committed to promoting academic excellence by supporting the family needs of UC San Diego’s faculty. In furtherance of this goal, it gives me great pleasure to announce the Dependent Care Travel Grant (DCTG) program that will provide eligible Senate faculty members with individual EVC-AA funded dependent care travel grants of up to $2,500 total per fiscal year.

In 2014-2015, the Academic Senate, in partnership with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI), convened an Academic Senate-Administration Joint Task Force on Family Accommodations (Task Force) to consider more competitive and flexible family accommodations for UC San Diego faculty. The Task Force, chaired by Mary Blair-Loy, former Associate Vice Chancellor for EDI, and Professor Guy Masters, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, made a number of recommendations intended to 1) expand benefits to increase equity and reflect the changing landscape and diversity of the family unit, 2) reduce the actual or perceived stigma associated with utilizing family accommodations, 3) and encourage broader use of family accommodations.

Among the Task Force recommendations was a proposal to provide travel grants to faculty who incur additional temporary dependent care expenses when traveling to engage in scholarly activities. The DCTG program was developed in response to this recommendation, which was endorsed in November 2015 by the Family Accommodations Implementation Team convened by Vice Chancellor, EDI, Becky Petitt. The program is intended to assist Senate Faculty of all ranks who require dependent care in order to attend a regional, national or international conference or professional meeting, or who require dependent care to engage in approved research or scholarship at a distant location. DCTG funds may be used to provide care for both children and adult dependents of eligible faculty members.

The program will be administered through Academic Personnel Services and will be available for faculty applicants during fall quarter, 2016.

The DCTG program is one of several Task Force recommendations being supported by my office. In addition, we are currently recruiting for a Faculty Work-Life Specialist, who will serve as a dedicated resource to academic appointees who may consider utilizing family accommodation benefits at UC San Diego. My office is also publishing revisions to PPM 230-15, Family Accommodations Policy, which will broaden access to family accommodations and make benefits more equitable.

I would like to thank Vice Chancellor Becky Petitt, members of the Academic Senate-Administration Joint Task Force on Family Accommodations, and members of the Family Accommodations Implementation Team for their efforts in improving UC San Diego’s family accommodations to better support the scholarly efforts of faculty who care for children, elder family members or family members with serious illness. In addition, I would like to extend my appreciation to the many campus stakeholders who met with the Task Force and shared their insights about family accommodation issues pertaining to faculty, including representatives from the Childcare Oversight Committee, the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women, the Early Care and Education Center (ECEC), the Graduate Student Association, the UC San Diego Office of Human Resources, the Partner Opportunities Program, the Women’s Center, and the Office for Resource Management and Planning, as well as faculty from general campus, SIO, and the clinical faculty of the School of Medicine.

If you have any questions concerning the DCTG program, please contact Kelly Lindlar, Director, Academic Policy Development, at klindlar@ucsd.edu or x24564.

Suresh Subramani Executive Vice Chancellor