Sorry for the delay in responding. That’s an excellent question, and hopefully, one that more men will engage in as family dynamics change so not everything falls to the mom.
My son was born in May and I submitted my materials for tenure review that September. I worked ahead to be sure my track record was tenure-worthy before my son was born. That way, I cleared the decks to immerse myself in fatherhood.
I know many colleges now allow for women to be able to pause their tenure clocks for a year when they have a child. This is a welcome development.

When our 1st daughter was born, my husband worked at a company that offered 12 weeks of parental leave for dads (4 weeks paid + 8 weeks unpaid). The culture was that everyone takes the paid, but *no one* takes the unpaid, even though most moms DO take the unpaid portion. My husband put in his request to take 8 weeks total and his team spent a lot of time trying to convince him not to take more than 4. Sigh. In the end, he took all of it, but ended up getting recruited by another company while he was on leave 😉

(Out of curiosity, I know the business school where I work runs on a different schedule from the university academic calendar, though I’m not sure whether it’s “better” or “worse,” or just different — is this true where you are, or is it the traditional ~14 week semesters, 2 per year, with optional summer and/or winter term teaching?)

So I guess the “asterisk” is the fact that the “actual” hours and “annualized” hours don’t match.

The reason it matters-So long as the annualized hours meets a certain number, you get a bonus (the amount of which is set, but then adjusted to match the actual FTE; e.g., Say you were at a 0.95 FTE, then you get 95% of the bonus.

Thank you.

On a related note, I am speaking at the National At-Home Dads Network conference this coming weekend. There’s a whole ballroom full of dads, writers, bloggers, etc. who push back on these media depictions whenever they can. In fact, their official t-shirt has the slogan ‘Dads don’t babysit: it’s called parenting”

Hi- First thanks to Laura for being a great colleague.- I have a Q&A with her over on my blog as well.

As you astutely point out, it is a vicious cycle. If work-family concerns are seen as “just” a woman’s issue, some will marginalize it as not so important. That’s horrifically wrong on many levels.

I am optimistic, though. Gen Xer and Millennial men are much more open to shared parenting and more egalitarian relationships at home and at work. In 10 years, I bet things will get better. heck, it was hardly on the radar 10 years ago.

@EB – out of curiosity, how explicit is the asterisk? Why is there an asterisk? (vs you just charge your hours to a “leave code” which would be like a client code). I’m always interested to learn how these things work.

I tend to get irritated when I hear of people telling my male colleagues not to take parental leave or that they don’t want an asterisk by their hours saying they only made their hours because of parental leave. No one ever gives me that advice as a woman because they know I will take the full leave policy and it would essentially be impossible to make up those hours without the asterisk. Giving this advice to my male colleagues makes the whole office culture seem to say you are less if you make use of the policy.