Upon request, professorial faculty members and instructors who have primary responsibility for the care of a newborn infant or newly-adopted pre-school child are granted one semester of full workload relief from classroom teaching, department offices such as DUS or DGS, and university committee work, or two semesters of half relief from such duties (at full pay) during the first year after the child joins the family. Workload relief for caregiving should not be scheduled in the same semester in which workload relief for giving birth is taken. These are separate and distinct benefits.

Workload relief is not a leave; the faculty member's responsibilities for research and undergraduate and graduate student advising remain unchanged, and they are expected to continue to be an active member of the department during the period of workload relief. New faculty members who have an infant under one year of age or who have adopted a pre-school child within the past year are also eligible for workload relief during the first semester or first year of their Princeton appointment, depending on the child’s date of birth or adoption. The faculty member must be the sole caregiver of the child for at least 20 hours between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday-Friday. A faculty member who wants to request workload relief as a new parent should inform their department chair in writing, describing their responsibility for the care of the child; this is normally done at least three months before the start of the workload relief. The department chair will notify the Office of the Dean of the Faculty via the Workload Relief Request form.

For more information, contact Oliver Avens ([email protected]), associate dean for academic affairs in Division I and II, and Karen Haskin ([email protected]), associate dean for academic affairs in Division III and IV.