Stanford University introduced a new policy concerning graduate students and maternity leave last week, becoming the second university in the United States to offer paid maternity leave for graduate students.
The University currently does not have a uniform policy concerning maternity leave for graduate students and the University is not considering creating a policy similar to Stanford's, according to Roseanne Ford, associate vice president for research and graduate studies.
Under Stanford's new policy, female graduate students are able to apply for an "academic accommodation period," which lets them remain full-time students with the opportunity to postpone assignments and exams. Graduate students serving as teaching or research assistants can also request up to six weeks of paid leave from those jobs.
Only one other university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, offers maternity leave for graduate students, Gail Mahood, the associate dean for graduate policy at Stanford, said.
"We recognized that there was a need to address the intrinsic conflict between the biological and research clocks [of female students]," Mahood said. "The prime childbearing years overlap with the time when most students [engage in] graduate studies and establish careers. We didn't want the birth of a child to cause women to leave graduate studies."
At the University, students who become pregnant during their graduate studies would have to work out an individualized program with their specific department of study, Ford said.
"We don't have a standard policy," Ford said. "It's hard to say whether the needs of grad students are being met. We value grad students and want to make sure they are able to be as productive as possible while they are here."
Ford said it is difficult for the University to create a uniform policy like Stanford's because the funding of graduate education comes from numerous sources which often stipulate maternity leave policies.
"For graduate students working on research funded by federal research grants, we would have to be in compliance with federal policies," Ford said. "That makes it a little tough to do a standardized policy, because students might be funded by research grants that have separate policies associated with them."
Gavin Reddick, Graduate Student Council president, said he had not heard of any problems concerning the University's current policies for graduate student maternity leave.
"I only know a couple of graduate students who are women and have had children while at grad school," Reddick said.
Though maternity leave has not come up as a problem within the Graduate Student Council, Reddick said they would be willing to look into the issue if a graduate student brought it up.
"In terms of maternity leave, we haven't had anyone raise that issue," Reddick said. "But if someone did, we would definitely take it on board and act for that."
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