I’ve got a stack of over twenty student letters on my desk all asking me the same thing: How do you balance being the parent of a newborn child and facing the high level of academic achievement required as a graduate student here at NC State?  Quite frankly I don’t have a good answer for you yet, but Student Government legislation and an upcoming Faculty Senate resolution on graduate student parental leave will soon provide the solution.

I think we can all agree that raising a newborn is certainly a time consuming effort for new and stressed parents.  This stress can only become more difficult when the parent is a student and is somehow expected to juggle the conflicting demands of classwork, teaching assistant positions, research, and a child.  If a student makes the reasonable decision to take a brief break from school and take care of a newborn, he or she can be slammed with a variety of crushing restrictions.  No longer a full time student, healthcare benefits can be revoked and in some cases international students will lose their visa.  Most disturbing, the strict student timeline for progress towards graduation marches on despite students’ desperate need for additional time to complete coursework.  While no one is at fault, it’s high time that the university adopts a parental leave policy that protects our students. It’s especially heartening to hear Provost Arden’s offer to have his office look into implementation of the policy if there is sufficient student and faculty support.

Fortunately, recent efforts have been made to correct this lamentable flaw and to find a working student parental leave policy.  The Faculty Senate truly deserves full commendation for their recent efforts and resolution that is making steady progress towards enactment.  It is under their initiative and information gathering that the Student Senate has similarly passed a resolution in support of students’ parental rights.  The reasonable resolution calls for a policy similar to ones that are already in place and working at other UNC system schools.  The adoption of such a measure would allow six weeks of absence to parents without the loss of their full time student status and extend the crushing clock required for the graduation timeline.  Students are merely seeking the same rights that were afforded to professionals almost 20 years ago with the Family and Medical Leave Act (1993).  NC State faculty and staff are currently granted six weeks of paid parental leave with the arrival of a new child, graduate students certainly deserve a commiserate level of support from their extended university family.

While I may not currently have an answer on how to bring balance to being a student and a parent, Student Government eagerly anticipates working with the Faculty Senate following the passage of their version of the recent Student Government Parental Leave Support Act.  It is only just that the same level of care accorded to our professionals on campus be extended to the greater graduate and undergraduate student population.  A common theme in the letters that I’ve seen is the simple plea that our university community gives students the time they need to care for the next generation of our Wolfpack family.