Gender bender

University needs to reopen discussion regarding benefits for female faculty

The editorial board is split.

Some of us think the University needs to take special care with its female faculty, providing child care and maternity leave to better attract potential applicants.

Others believe having female-focused initiatives are just as gender discriminatory as the current policy.

So what should the University do?

How many weeks should a new mother have off? Should fathers get leave too? Should child care be extended to anyone in the University community who needs it? Is it fair to actively recruit female professors – and put male prospects on hold – for the sole purpose of evening out gender inequities?

We, The Red & Black editorial board, can agree on two things: 1) current policies on maternity leave and child care are not meeting the work-life needs of our students, faculty and staff and 2) these policies won’t change without student support.

Most undergraduate students have several years before we need to consider issues such as spousal employment assistance or maternity leave, but that makes them no less important. These problems will be ours someday and we need to start thinking about them now.

The current editorial board had never discussed these issues before, and our guess is many students haven’t touched on them either.

Faculty, on the other hand, have.

This stark division in the discussion of University matters creates a divide in the University community – students should care about faculty in the way faculty care about students. As today’s article by Chelsea Cook shows, that care needs to extend to faculty family.

In fact we would be happy to spark the much-needed debate with a few questions of our own:

Why should University chairs have to spend time individually investigating each maternity case? There should be a set policy, and chairs should only be dealing with exceptional circumstances.

Are we losing potential professors because we do not offer the work-life benefits found in some Universities? We need to take the steps to recruit the best faculty, regardless of gender and family status.

Is this matter really one of budgetary constraints, or is it a simple lack of administrative concern? The budget has always been tight, but is it so restricted that we cannot help faculty members in need?

The University already has public forums on hot topics like furloughs, going green and provost selection, so why is there silence on this issue?

- Megan Otto and Caitlin Byrnes for the editorial board

Unwarranted flag

Southeastern Conference admits error in calling excessive celebration penalty

Turns out the flag for “excessive celebration” Georgia receiver A.J. Green received in Saturday’s loss was excessive on the part of the officials.

And that came directly from the horse’s mouth.

“We looked at it from the TV recording of the video and looked at it quite a bit from a different angle than [the official] had,” Rogers Redding, the SEC’s officials coordinator, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday. “This was coming from the perspective from the field of play. But we concluded that the video did not support the call.”

Of course while nothing can be done regarding the game’s final outcome, The Red & Black’s editorial board applauds the Southeastern Conference for admitting this heinous mistake.

More often than not, the conference will blindly stand behind the officials for poor calls, which is the equivalent to rubbing salt in a wound.

It is refreshing Redding had the temerity to admit his officials were wrong to throw the flag. If one lesson can be learned from this situation, it is to not give the refs a reason to even throw a flag.

Just give the ball to the official and celebrate on the sideline.

- Michael Fitzpatrick for the editorial board