Comments on Goal 4: Investment in Faculty, Staff, Students

[uhplan]

This is for your comments on Goal 4: Investment in Faculty, Staff, Students, and Their Environment

If you have comments regarding the Objectives and/or the Action Strategies of Goal 4, please post within those specific topics.

[miriams]

UHM needs to begin treating its faculty better; if salaries are immovable then please make affordable housing and affordable childcare/preschool priority issues for your faculty. These are manageable goals if UHM makes them a priority.

[Em]

As miriams stated, on-site childcare is an important issue, both for faculty and for students.

Here at UH Hilo, faculty members with under-twos frequently arrange with a trusted student to watch the baby while the faculty member teaches class, and it's a pretty common sight to see students wheeling babies around campus. Students and faculty also bring kids into the classroom when childcare arrangements fall through. (Obviously you can't do this if you're teaching chem lab.)

In a recent survey of 159 students in several sections of a general ed. class, around 10% of them indicated that they were *considering leaving* UH Hilo because of childcare/family responsibilities. I'd be interested in seeing a similar survey of faculty.