idiot questions about maternity leave arrangements for lecturers/academics

[kalidasa]

I'm not sure if this is the right area for this but hope someone can shed some light. I am (just) pregnant and after two early losses in Jan and Feb this time feels more real somehow and my instinct is that it might work out. If so, I'll be due in early December.

I am a lecturer a couple of years into a permanent job at a London uni. We teach two 11-week terms either side of Christmas, then just a couple of weeks of revision classes after Easter before exams. Although there are a few young-ish women in my department, none of us has had a baby yet, and there are no more senior women with a young family.

I have a heavy teaching load for next year, including a brand-new third-year course running all year (and already heavily subscribed) which I have designed myself to reflect my research interests. So what happens about this, given that I would be going on maternity leave, at the latest, about three weeks before the end of the first term.

This is a pretty stupid question but what happens with my teaching? Will they hire someone temporary who has to do their best with the last 2/3 of my courses (presumably with some pre-leave guidance from me)? Will my HoD want to rejig all the teaching provision when I tell him? I know that at some level it's not really my problem but I want to have some sense of what to expect.

I also have no idea how much maternity leave to take but maybe that's another thread!

I have a friend that works as a tutor at a university, and called to ask his HoD what they would do, and what protocol is.
He said: "My HoD says they would either bring in a temp, who would work from either your notes, or, what you would be teaching anyway. Either that or have another member of staff take over your classes if they can, and shuffle between."

That might not be the answer you want...just didn't want your post to get lost in a sea of unanswered posts!
Your best bet would be to ask your HoD what he will be doing, and what you can do to help whoever will be taking over while you're away. That way you're still in the loop :)

Almost certainly they will get someone in to teach the remaining lectures, and certainly someone else will do the marking. But you can probably recommend the replacement lecturer (unless they get a permanent colleague to take over), and you could work with them beforehand to make sure you were on the same page.

But I really wouldn't sweat it.

Brilliant thanks both. Part of the reason I was wondering is that I'm not sure yet how much leave I'll take and if it's at the shorter end of the possible spectrum, I would in theory be around again in time to mark the summer exams for my modules (we are still mostly exam-assessed). If that were going to happen, I'd make a point of drafting the exams over the summer because I don't want to end up having to mark exams for my own module that someone else has written! If you see what I mean.

I will definitely speak to my HoD but I want to wait for a while as I've had two early losses already this year. Fortunately our term finishes at the end of this week so most of my teaching will be out of the way which allows me to lurk in the library or at home for a bit and conceal how grim I feel!

First, best of luck both with the pregnancy and with any meetings with your HoD. I work as a manager in a university department and am currently on maternity leave myself. My colleagues and HoD have been very supportive and I hope yours will be too.

We often have to arrange cover for short periods (illness, paternity leave...). Common causes of longer periods requiring cover are research buyouts for 6-12 months, where an academic member of staff gets funding to cover their teaching. So although we rarely have to find maternity cover for teaching, we regularly need to work around these research buyouts and sabbaticals, some of which we only know about once the teaching is allocated. It will depend on your university and subject, but your HoD may be used to the general situation if not to covering maternity leave. In our university i believe maternity cover is paid for from central university budgets rather than the department's, but this may not be true for yours. In any case financing cover should be something the HoD needs to figure out rather than something for you to worry about.

My advice would be to try to be clear about your own plans where you can be, and otherwise show willingness to be flexible on the teaching cover options. In terms of going back to work, if you plan to go back after a shorter period then start looking at childcare options early - some of my colleagues have had to delay returns because of a lack of places at their preferred nursery.

Thanks scatterplot that's really helpful. Our department always has people missing for sabbaticals/research funding reasons, but I suppose in those cases the HoD always knows in advance whether staff are due sabbaticals or, at least, whether they have applied for research funding and so might be out of commission, even if he has to wait quite late to find out for sure. I plan to tell him if everything's OK at the first scan, which will be at about 12 weeks here I think, so around the end of May.

When you say 'a shorter period,' do you mean, shorter than a year? That's a really good point about nurseries, I know there are lots around here but I bet they all fill up really quickly. So this is presumably something we should be looking at during the pregnancy.

I've only got one friend who started her family when established in a career (medicine in her case. My other friends who have children already had them before they really got going, e.g. while graduate students). She went back at 6 months and said that was right for her and she was ready to go back at that point.

I would definitely recommend putting your child down for nursery places long before it's born (maybe after the 20 week scan). We put our DS down for nurseries the week he was born for a start at 6 months, and now he's 21 months we're STILL on the waiting list for good nurseries and enduring a bad one.

That's scary Don. Can I ask roughly where you are? We are in North London. Do you also mind me asking if you find 6 months was about the right point for you?

Cambridge. And I had no choice but to put him in nursery at 6 months or we would have lost our house. Otherwise I would have taken much longer off.

Actually, it ended up being OK. We only put him in 2 days a week at 6 months because DH was on sabbatical; I would have felt dreadful putting a 6 month old baby in more days than that. Now he totally loves nursery, but then he is a little extravert!!!