Harvard Judged Mother-Friendly

Harvard was the only university to nab a spot on Working Mother’s list of the top 100 mother-friendly employers, released earlier this week.

But unlike its performance in most other rankings—many of the University’s schools consistently garner the highest honors in such lists—Harvard failed to make the cut for Working Mother’s top 10, the only portion of the list that was actually ranked.

A senior editor at Working Mother, Jennifer Gill, praised Harvard for its flexible scheduling, tuition assistance program and child care services.

Polly Price, Harvard’s associate vice president for human resources, said that while many large universities offer progressive packages to parents, Harvard is a leader in providing such benefits as health care for domestic partners and time off to adoptive parents.

“Relative to other employers on the corporate side or the non-profit side, Harvard, because of its size and because of its concern with recruiting and retaining the best faculty and staff, has a huge array of benefits that matter,” Price said.

But although Harvard has made inroads in helping parents balance work and family, some faculty still say that it is very difficult to manage parenthood while holding down a tenure-track post.

Associate Professor of African and African American Studies Kimberly M. DaCosta ’89, says she finds it hard to balance an academic career and raising three children.

“[An academic’s] work doesn’t end. You always have something hanging over you,” she said. “Mostly I think as an academic, you have to have a long period of time to let ideas gestate so that you can think through things and the nature of being around kids is the opposite. You’re interrupted constantly.”

Aurora Mebwar, who works in Leverett’s dining hall, says she appreciates that she can work the 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift.

“I get to go home. I still cook for [my kids], and I’m there for them,” she said.

Mebwar also said her managers were understanding when she needed a day off to care for her children.

“When my kids were babies, if I needed a day off because they were sick, they were flexible about that,” she said.

Inge-Lise Ameer, the undergraduate program administrator for the English department, cited a Harvard-run program which takes children on field trips during school vacation weeks as a special boon to working parents.

“I really think the Office of Work and Family does a lot and they deserve a lot of credit and more resourses,” Ameer said.

While Harvard is only the third university to make Working Mother magazine’s eighteenth annual list, Gill says she thinks that the University’s citation this year could encourage other universities to apply for the honor next year.

“I think that perhaps there is a misconception that this list is only for companies and maybe other universities do not think of it as a list for them but we encourage everyone to apply. We hope that having Harvard on this list will raise the profile of the list in the academic world,” she said.