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July 18, 2006

How a Search Can Change an Institution

When the University of Louisville first started to recruit Gina Bertocci in 2004, she wasn’t looking to move. A bioengineering professor at the University of Pittsburgh, she had a great job, a lab pulling in seven-figure grants and a partner who was doing a postdoc.

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But Louisville doesn’t give up easily. The university is pushing for increased national visibility — particularly in science and technology. Bertocci’s work focuses on tools that help children who have been the victims of child abuse and other physical injuries, and her lab is considered a leader in a field that combines child welfare, medicine, and engineering. So officials kept on coming back, offering her an endowed chair, a nice salary, help for her partner in locating a job. One day, Bertocci asked if her partner could be covered by domestic partner benefits and the officials recruiting her (academics, not HR folks) said that they assumed so, but would need to check.

As they found out, no such benefits existed for unmarried partners. Bertocci said she would make the move — but only with the understanding that the university would move toward offering benefits for domestic partners, something no university in Kentucky had done. Last week, Louisville fulfilled its end of the deal, when its board adopted a domestic partner program. In fact, the human resources division at the university had been meeting with gay and lesbian faculty members previously to talk about benefits issues so there was already interest before Bertocci’s recruitment.

Louisville trustees — clearly aware of the state political environment — stressed that they were not taking a stand on gay marriage or, in the words of one, “endorsing any lifestyle.” Officials have stressed issues of fairness and of competitiveness.

Faculty members who worked on the issue said that once it got on the agenda, administrators were supportive and wanted to find ways to offer the benefit. The change won’t cost the university much — if any — money. Louisville charges married employees a fee to have their spouses covered, and will apply the same rule to domestic partners. No one knows how many partners will be covered — many of them have jobs with full benefits packages and won’t opt for the plan. (Bertocci’s partner works as a consultant, so the benefit will help her as she’ll benefit from the university’s group rate on good coverage.) Anita Moorman, an associate professor of education who was one of the faculty leaders on the issue, said that it could end up being as few as 20 employees who use the benefit.

“It was more of an equity and policy issue,” Moorman said, than strictly a financial one. “If you look at the value of our compensation packages, they were simply different for married employees and non-married employees. We need those values to be the same,” she said.

Beyond equity there is competition — and that may be key in Kentucky and in other states that may be more socially conservative but that want their universities recruiting top scholars.

Only a distinct minority of colleges and universities offer domestic partner benefits. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the figure stood at 290 as of June 1, a number that has increased modestly over the years but that represents but a fraction of colleges. But the campaign also found that of the top 25 universities as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, 92 percent offer the benefits. That’s the group Louisville wants to be in.

That competition matters is evident in Kentucky. The University of Kentucky also has goals to advance in national rankings. Prior to Louisville’s announcement, Kentucky officials said that they had no plans to look at the issue of domestic partner benefits. Immediately after, Kentucky said it would look at the issue — as part of a broad review of benefits at top public universities.

Bertocci is very happy in Louisville and with the university’s decision. “If a university like this is expecting to compete for human resources, it needs to have a competitive compensation package, and for top universities that includes domestic partner benefits,” she said. She’s also doing what Louisville brought her in to do: Several of her graduate students have recently won national honors and she’s moved more than $1 million in grant support to the university — with more on the way.

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

as long as they are extended beyond a “sexual partner” to include a family member such as mother/daughter or mother/son (helping raise his children for example) who are partners for other reasons

Susan, at 9:10 am EDT on July 18, 2006

Louisville and Dr. Bertocci

This is wonderful news. But, i wonder if Louisville would have done the same for someone not as distinguished as Dr. Bertocci? Say, a grad student or a staff member who helps keeps the institution going but is doesn’t bring 7 figure grants to the campus-

terry white, associate general counsel at NCSU, at 9:55 am EDT on July 18, 2006

Here’s how it probably really went down. The academic committee made employment promises they could not keep. The HR people liked the concept because that is what most of their counterparts in the corporate world started doing years ago. The policy will be written to exclude heterosexual partners, as is the case with most of these policies. The gay and lesbian faculty will momentarily stop complaining. The cost of employee benefits will go up to accomodate a single special interest group, but taxpayers and students will pick up most of the tab. And all because an academic committee either ineptly or purposely promised something to a top “child abuse scientist” that the university was forced to deliver. I bask in your brilliance.

GoFigure, at 11:05 am EDT on July 18, 2006

This is great news for those of us committed to institutional equity. Hats off especially to the gay and lesbian faculty who’d begun conversations with HR before Bertocci came along—while it’s exciting to think a highly sought job candidate can make such an impact on policy, it seems more likely that the confluence of these demands accelerated the process of institutional change (if the university’s headed in that direction, might as well do it in time to get that recruit!).

Is it too much to hope that university administrators who recognize the business sense of equitable HR policies will also speak out against state laws that ultimately hurt recruitment and retention of LGBT faculty?

I already know of one star professor who’s left a job with DP benefits here in Ohio to move, with his partner and adopted children, to a state that will recognize their family. Administrators who feel they can’t “take a stand” on same-sex marriage, adoption rights, anti-bullying legislation, etc. may soon discover that schools that offer DP benefits as well as a favorable political environment retain the competitive edge when it comes to recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and students.

Lisa, Postdoctoral Fellow at Case Western Reserve University, at 11:05 am EDT on July 18, 2006

Susan, how strange that I never hear heterosexual partners referred to merely as “sexual partners.” Gays and lesbians, like their heterosexual counterparts, are “partners for other reasons,” too.

Lory, at 11:55 am EDT on July 18, 2006

To further clarify...

To clarify the issue....The movement to advance DPBs at the University of Louisville was largely due to our Faculty and Staff for Human Rights (FSHR) group, as well as a very supportive HR Director, Provost and President. Granted, those recruiting me from the academic side were confident that the University was “committed to excellence in diversity", however rumblings from the faculty and staff regarding DPBs began prior to my arrival. The role that my partner and I played was via the FSHR group advocacy efforts. Make no mistake, it takes a very supportive community to bring about such change. However, a few willing poster children and personal stories always help to put a face on the issue.

Gina Bertocci, Assoc Professor at Univ of Louisville, at 11:55 am EDT on July 18, 2006

I’m single—what about me?

In previous comments, someone was worried that everyone would be paying more for “a single special interest group.” As far as I’m concerned, married couples are a single special interest group. I’m paying for husbands, wives, and child—none of which I have. Giving equal coverage is great, but for singles there should be a discount. I don’t see anyone bringing that up.

MU, at 11:55 am EDT on July 18, 2006

Discrimination in coverage

MU has a nice point about single people and special interest groups. Of course, at my institution the hired individual is covered gratis, while those of us with “partners” and children pay for their coverage, so it’s hard to see what further discount singles at our school could get. Perhaps we could pay single faculty & staff to accept the school’s coverage.

But that’s not the discrimination that most concerns me. How dare U of L, or any progressive instution, limit benefits to ONE domestic partner? This is blatant bigotry against the polygamous/polyamourous community. Someone should sue.

MediaDoc, Associate Professor at East Carolina Univ., at 2:45 pm EDT on July 18, 2006

MU makes a valid point about singles subsidizing families, but childless couples can also be in the unwelcome position of subsidizing families with children. My partner and I are covered under a policy that has a rate for single policyholders and an additional fixed rate covering all additional members of the family. Putting me (and only me) on the policy was exorbitant—we are not paying twice what my partner alone was paying but more than two and half times the single rate. As an added insult, we are paying exactly the same rate as a family of four—or a family of fourteen, for that matter. I don’t think it at all reasonable that a couple with, say, six kids should pay the same as a couple with no kids. In fact, I feel as though my partner and I are being penalized for not having children.

Some domestic partnership plans only apply to same-gender couples, a policy that I think is unfair (as unfair as current laws that only allow the marriage of opposite-gender couples). Is U of Louisville planning to adopt such a policy? I don’t know the gender of Professor Bertocci’s spouse, but I am assuming that s/he is female. All of the articles that I’ve seen on the U of L domestic partner plan have noted that their criteria for domestic partnership are yet to be determined. I hope that U of L will do the right thing and include other types of domestic partners. But even if they don’t, providing coverage options for same-gender couples is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction.

kaineas, at 2:50 pm EDT on July 18, 2006

who’s paying for who?

MU, I don’t know where you work but at my institution, married people and DP’s pay almost twice as much as single people if they want to include their spouses/partners on their insurance — married/partnered parents pay even more. Single people pay for what they get, like the rest of us.

Kristine, University of Iowa, at 3:45 pm EDT on July 18, 2006

Too perverse

MediaDoc’s proposal for covering polyamourous groups (more that two people) is a radical proposal. He’s go a lot of work to do if he wants to see university benefits for groups like that.

I’m much more conservative than MediaDoc and I’d like to go the other direction, and limit “spousal” benefits to married male-female couples that currently have children. Like my right-wing friends remind keep reminding me, the purpose of marriage is child rearing. Couples planning to have kids, or those whose kids are grown, don’t count. That’s not marriage, and they shouldn’t be covered.

Tom Henning, at 5:30 pm EDT on July 18, 2006

Equity and choice is key when it comes to employee benefits

My institution offers domestic partner benefits to unmarried couples regardless of sexual orientation. I think it is a fair and equitable system. How much you contribute to the cost of health insurance coverage is dependent upon who is covered. For example, coverage for one individual is less expensive than coverge for two individuals. My husband and I each have ‘coverage for one’ through our separate employers because it is actually less expensive than for us to have coverage for two under either of our plans. And of course I must address Tom Henning’s incredibly offensive comment. Marriage is about merging two lives. It’s about love and respect and living life together. I am married without children and my marriage is healthy and happy and as valid and real as the marriages of couples with children. Married and unmarried couples sometimes chose not to have children or are unable to have children. Their childless status certainly does not invalidate their relationship or define their relationship and frankly, it’s nobody’s business. Quit analyzing and judging others and pay attention to how you live your life. The world would be a better place if we all did that.

Mary Beth Mercer, Project Manager at Case Western Reserve University, at 12:10 pm EDT on July 19, 2006

Thanks Tom

I was trying a reductio ad absurdum in my previous post. Proof once again that the Internet is not the best medium for subtlety...

MediaDoc, Associate Professor at East Carolina Univ., at 6:30 pm EDT on July 19, 2006

Gofigure

Where does Gofigure seem to think that gays and lesbian are not tax payers also? In fact more gays and lesbians are gainfully employed and make more money per household therefore probably paying more taxes...

DAVID, at 4:40 am EST on December 20, 2006

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