Rice offers grad students new, unique leave policy

Rice
offers grad students new, unique leave policy

BY MARGOT DIMOND
Rice News staff

Graduate students
who cannot fulfill their stipend commitments due to a medical
emergency or the adoption or birth of child have traditionally
been out of luck and left to their own devices. They either
had to stay in school and work or forfeit their stipend.
In the case of international students, they could lose their
visa status as well.

Things have changed
for the better with the announcement this week of a new
policy on medical and parental leave for Rice graduate students
— one of the first of its kind in the country.

The leave policy,
which covers all enrolled graduate students, guarantees
a continuation of stipend for up to six weeks for graduate
students who need to take medical or family leave. By maintaining
full enrollment status for the semester, the student remains
eligible for financial support, can maintain visa status
and may continue to defer payment on undergraduate student
loans.

Jordan Konisky,
vice provost for research and graduate studies, said that
until now, everything has depended on the faculty adviser
in regard to how graduate leaves were handled. “There
has been no set policy and no guidance for the students
or faculty. They want the guidelines that this policy provides,”
he said.

The policy addresses
all three types of stipends offered to graduate students.
For a graduate fellowship or teaching assistantship, where
Rice provides 100 percent of the stipend, the university
will continue its funding for medical or parental leave
for the full six weeks.

For a stipend
supported by government funds for a specific research project,
the graduate student will stay on the grant funds for the
first three weeks, with Rice picking up the cost for the
second three weeks.

Some fellowships,
such as those offered by the Ford Foundation or the National
Science Foundation, are portable, meaning they are awarded
directly to the student, who can go to any graduate school
he or she chooses. In that case, the stipend will be continued
by the funding organization for the entire six weeks, and
if there is an instance where the granting organization
will not continue funding, Rice will pay for it.

When a short-term
leave isn’t enough time to resume their duties, students
may request a leave without stipend for the rest of the
semester. For longer than a semester, the university allows
for an unpaid leave for medical reasons for no more than
two consecutive semesters.

Susan Lurie,
associate dean for graduate studies, noted that the new
policy is rooted in the “desire to be fair — to
help students continue their studies in the least disruptive
way with the least possibility for adverse consequences.”

Miles Scotcher,
former president of the Graduate Student Association and
currently the student representative to the Graduate Council,
said the students are delighted with the new policy. “Medical
and parental leave is a quality-of-life issue for graduate
students, and this is a positive statement that Rice University
is prepared to embrace such issues and put a policy in place
to resolve them.”