Sat 13 Dec 2008
Professional Development Fund
Posted by David under Cost Cutting Ideas at 6:25 am
How much does Williams spend on professional development for spouses?
The Professional Development Fund was established in the fall of 2003 in response to a proposal by the Faculty Compensation Committee. The Fund offers limited financial subsidies for spouses and partners of College faculty and administrative staff to engage in job-related education, training, or professional development. The purpose of the Fund is to help individuals acquire new skills and qualifications that will ultimately increase their prospects for finding meaningful employment in the region.
The Fund is managed through the Office of Spouse/Partner Employment Counseling and supported by a committee made up of the Associate Dean of the Faculty, the Associate Director of Human Resources, a representative from the Faculty Compensation Committee, a representative of the Staff Council, and one additional faculty member.
Cut this completely.
Print • Email| « Sad News – The Last of the Trinity Has Left Us FURTHER UPDATED | WEPO Details » |
3 Responses to “Professional Development Fund”
Leave a Reply
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post
If a comment you submitted does not show up, please email us at eph at ephblog dot com. Please note that commenters are required to use a valid email address when submitting comments.
Alexander Woo says:
This program smells like something that was created to lure some particular faculty member to Williamstown, and perhaps has been used since to lure or keep a couple more faculty members.
Cut this program and you lose those three faculty members. Their spouses want stimulating work, and the faculty members all value their marriages more than their jobs.
I think some of you, and especially the economists, might have some trouble understanding the perverse preferences of academics and their spouses. The number of additional first-choice faculty hires you get from such a program is going to be more than the number of additional first-choice faculty hires you get from raising offers by 2K, and this program costs a lot less than raising offers by 2K.
Diana says:
Also, this may not often be a problem, but I know a professor at Williams who is a foreign citizen, who is teaching at Williams on an H1 work visa. His wife, who is as smart as her husband and would like to get a stimulating job, is on an H2 and thereby cannot work in the U.S. at this time. The professor nearly left Williams after a year or two because his wife was so understimulated, just staying home with their kid.
This spouse would have a very hard time getting a job after taking a few years out of the workforce (see Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bait and Switch,” which I read this summer, for more on how this “gap” prevents people from getting a job). However, if in the intervening years she were using money from this fund to do job-related things, perhaps she would have an easier time getting a job after they got green cards.
Ronit says:
Alexander Woo: keep in mind that David Kane has previously recommended replacing lectures with videotapes. I wouldn’t expect him to understand silly “human factors” like spouses and preferences. Quants rarely do.
(in a semi-related note, I doubt that Barbara Ehrenreich, while certainly a great advocate for American workers and American women, would extend any sympathy to Williams subsidizing foreigners so they can take “stimulating” jobs from ‘Muricans. She’s got an anti-globalist schtick to keep up, y’know.)