Work-Life Balance Part 3: Jimmy Roberts
Jimmy Roberts extended the tenure clock to be able to spend more time with his family.
Jimmy Roberts is accustomed to looking at competing demands: as an economist, he studies how to design auctions to best balance the competing needs of buyer and seller.
In his personal life, he figures out how to balance the competing demands of being the father of 20-month old twins, Henry and Bea, while working toward tenure at Duke.
"I used to stay at the office doing my research well past dinner," said Roberts, who joined Duke as an assistant professor of economics in 2009 a few months before the twins were born. "Now I want to get home and help out."
Junior faculty at Duke are usually given seven years before being evaluated for promotion and tenure. But since 2003, based on recommendations from the Women's Initiative, Duke has allowed junior faculty to request a sixth month extension to the tenure clock to better balance research, teaching and family priorities in the case of birth, adoption, death or serious illness in the family.
"Knowing that I have an extra six months added to the seven year tenure clock means that for right now, I can leave work a bit earlier to be home for that witching hour before dinner and not feel guilty about short-changing my research," he said.
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