Penn State has a guideline that encourages providing maternity/paternity leave for postdocs, and the College has been
doing so since this seems like the right thing to do. However, this comes with a wrinkle. Since this is a guideline and
not a policy, the money to cover this benefit is not built into the indirect rate and the University does not cover these
expenses. As a result, these become the responsibility of the College and the PI of the grant. That’s where things get
interesting.
If you have a postdoc that takes advantage of maternity or paternity leave, we can try to get the sponsor to provide
additional funding to cover the expenses, but they may not do so since it is just a guideline. If additional funding is not
made available, the expenses will be covered as follows. Any future RIF returns from the College to the PI for the
project funding the postdoc will be suspended until 50% of the maternity/paternity leave is covered. The College will
cover the other 50% of the maternity/paternity expenses from the RIF that it retains. We will not retain RIF funds from
other projects to help offset these expenses if the project in question does not generate sufficient RIF to fully cover
these expenses.
Approved by: Dr. Andrew Sears, Dean, 10/20/2015
Revised: Karen Brewster, changed to IST_AC-17, previously IST_HR-04, 11/16/2020