When sociology professor Xiaoling Shu gave birth to her daughter in 2000, she was also seeking tenure and the job security and creative autonomy that it affords faculty members.

One can imagine the difficulties — raising a child and getting tenure are both highly demanding, time-consuming propositions, to say the least. On top of her research commitments, Shu, who studies social stratification and gender, was also teaching four classes a year, mentoring graduate students, supervising dissertations and serving on committees. Now, Shu suddenly needed to spend time raising a child as well.

One day she discovered a University of California policy that actually allows faculty members to extend by one year the deadline for achieving tenure. The idea is to give faculty a chance to balance both their professional and personal worlds.

Keeping on track for tenure is also important. For Shu and other faculty at higher education institutions around the country, tenure offers the academic freedom and job security to explore their subjects without hindrance. Among other benefits, tenure prevents instructors from being fired for openly disagreeing with authorities or popular opinion — on or off campus.

In fact, many female professors of prior decades had to choose between tenure and children. And if they waited to have children after they finally achieved tenure, perhaps in their late 30s, many women were past their reproductive peak.

After using the policy — and keeping the tenure clock from ticking for a year — Shu moved ahead on both family and career fronts. The mother of a 5-year-old secured tenure earlier this year, making the jump in rank to associate professor and opening her career door even wider.

Work-life policy

Since the 1990s, UC ladder-rank faculty members have had the option of extending that time frame — "stopping the clock," in other words — in the event of a birth or adoption. From 2004 on, these requests have been automatically granted. At UC Davis, 35 junior faculty members have taken advantage of the stopping-the-clock policy since its implementation — both women and men — according to the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel.

Barbara Horwitz, the vice provost for academic personnel, says the UC system was among the first to adopt a stop-the-clock policy. "I think other universities have been implementing similar policies to be competitive," she says.

The years spent trying to gain the security and prestige that accompany tenure are especially trying for faculty members, regardless of whether they have family responsibilities. The pressure to conduct and publish research is high, as is the need to gain a reputation in a given field. And being denied tenure means years of hard work have been wasted.

"Being an assistant professor is quite stressful psychologically," Shu says. "There are different levels of interpersonal relationships you need to establish with your colleagues. You need to fit in. That sometimes can be quite stressful."

That's why faculty members have come to appreciate the extension policy so much.

"I can't stress this policy's importance enough," Shu says. "For academics who try to have a successful career and a family life they're happy with, it's just too hard without the extra time."

Marianne Page is an associate professor of economics. "The tenure clock corresponds with the biological clock," she points out.

Page also took advantage of the flexibility the measure offered. She gave birth to a son in 2000, one year before she was due to come up for tenure. Though Page had already submitted most of her research for publication at the time of her child's birth, she still found the extra year helpful. Instead of using the time to conduct new research, Page decided to revise some of her earlier work, giving it a higher chance of being published. She earned tenure in 2002.

Page's story demonstrates that even faculty members close to making tenure can benefit from the clock stopping policy.

"It would have been that much more valuable if I'd had a child earlier in my career," Page says. "As it was, though, I was still grateful for it."

Mike Hill, an associate professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, is one faculty member who stopped the clock early in his career. Hill's wife gave birth to twin sons, Alex and Matt, in 1998 when he was two years down the tenure track.

"Having infant twins is a full-time job for two people," Hill says. "When I was home with the boys, my wife couldn't necessarily get away, but she could at least go to the store or something. My being home was huge."

Unfortunately for Hill, the time he spent taking care of his sons meant less time he had available for conducting research. He quickly fell behind in his research publications, which led to a negative performance appraisal. Hill had to scramble over the next few years to make up the deficit, and was able to get back on track thanks to the tenure extension he was granted.

"If I hadn't had that extra year, I wouldn't have made the turnaround," he says.

Unlike Shu and Page though, Hill had difficulty in getting that extra year. He says his department held the perception that the stopping-the-clock policy was for women, not men. Most people he talked to said he would not be granted an extension.

For Hill, the lack of awareness of the policy was discouraging. "Getting that feedback early on was a difficult thing," says Hill. "It increased my stress level. I felt I needed to justify why I needed to stop the clock."

Hill had to find out from Barry Klein, the vice chancellor for academic personnel at the time, that male faculty members routinely took advantage of the policy.

Time with children

Despite the extra stress it created early on, Hill says stopping the clock is an important policy. "We want our colleagues to have a good life, not just a good career, and that early time with your children is really important," he said.

Even for faculty who don't end up needing an extra year to gain tenure, stopping the clock can still be an insurance policy.

Barbara Chapman, a neurology, physiology and behavior associate professor, decided to apply for her extra year in 2001 after the birth of her daughter. As an assistant professor for six years, she was worried about her publications output. Though she managed to make tenure by the original deadline, Chapman found comfort about the stop-the-clock option. "It definitely was an insurance policy," she says.

For details, visit www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/apm/apm-133.pdf. Or contact Binnie Singh, 752-0963, binsingh@ucdavis.edu.