Work/Life Updates

Since 2007, the Office of Work/Life has been committed to supporting the well-being of Columbia University’s diverse community in their pursuit of meaningful and productive academic, personal and work lives. The Office supports Columbia colleagues through all phases of the life cycle, education, and career, focusing on: child care and schooling (including back-up care); housing and relocation; faculty spouse/partner dual career search; well-being; adult/elder care; and breastfeeding support.   

The Office of Work/Life is particularly dedicated to supporting the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty population. We address the unique needs of individuals as well as supporting policies and programs that recognize the varied set of demands faced by the University’s faculty community.  We understand that easing the challenges that come with relocation can have a direct impact on Columbia's ability to attract and retain an outstanding, diverse faculty.

Service Areas
Through in-person, Zoom, telephone, and email consultation, the Office of Work/Life provides personalized guidance on navigating options for early education and child care, K-12 schooling, non-Columbia housing, and dual career needs. 

Pivoting to Meet Faculty Needs during COVID-19

When COVID-19 disrupted the lives of our colleagues, the Office of Work/Life was uniquely positioned to move to virtual services and programming. Because flexibility is key to all of our work, we efficiently pivoted to virtual consultations, workshops, and programming. We developed a guide to Caring for the Virtual Workforce with helpful tips about working remotely. We had already been offering workshops on Zoom, so we were able to ramp up our programming in a virtual format.

This spring, we launched a variety of online workshops, such as “How Do I Obtain a Mortgage and Can I Afford It?” “Your Aging Parents’ Finances,” and “Breastfeeding Basics,” and attendance soared. In response to emerging concerns, we developed a faculty-specific Parenting series in collaboration with the Columbia University Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CUCARD). The sessions were tailored to the needs of parents with children of different ages. We recorded these workshops, and archived them in a Virtual Video Library where all Columbia affiliates may view them asynchronously. 

As well-being becameeven more critical to supporting our community, we expanded our programming:  Virtual Yoga classes amassed a dedicated following, our weekly “Take a Break: Mid-Day Stretch and Re-Set,” attracted close to 400 attendees over just a few months, “Ergonomics 101: Building a Healthy Workspace at Home,” was a very popular offering, and a morning meditation series was added in the fall.  Our Summer Fitness Challenge, which invited healthy competition among colleagues, attracted 208 active participants to our app. Departments and schools across the campuses asked us to develop well-being workshops to build community for faculty and staff. We brought together groups from the School of Business, the School of Social Work, the Mailman School of Public Health, and the School of Professional Studies, and others, for sessions such as “Optimizing Energy @Work and Home,” and an ongoing Chair Yoga program for the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.

As parents became  eager to engage their children in virtual learning and enrichment experiences, we developed three online guides:  Resources for Parents During COVID-19, a Summer Resource Guide and a Fall Resource Guide for Parents. Our individual consultations for families searching for child care and schools went virtual, and we heard from parents as they grappled with difficult immediate and long-term decisions. We made frequent updates to our website as child care and schooling mandates evolved. Our back-up child care program, which is administered through Bright Horizons, was key in assisting colleagues who were working remotely with children at home. The temporary Crisis Care option, offered to essential faculty and staff at CUIMC, allowed families to engage a known caregiver in their homes and receive partial reimbursement.  This benefit not only helped to address acute child care needs, but it also eased health and safety concerns.

As summer and fall approached, we increased the options for parents who were managing remote and hybrid schooling. We added 50 additional hours of backup care (which was also available for elder/adult care) for eligible colleagues. We developed a program called Parent Connection, which allowed Columbia parents to find each other to share caregiving or school pick-ups, to hire a caregiver together, to take turns supervising remote learning, or to make new friends. We also offered a caregiving app Komae, to help parents identify other Columbia families with similar parenting styles and COVID practices to share care and create “pods.” Over 300 employees have signed up for one or both of these new options in just a few months. With a growing need for tutoring and assistance with remote learning, we added options through Bright Horizons, as well as creating  our own curated list. And, by signing up for our new periodic Work/Life Updates emails, employees could learn about new programs. We updated our website to include Resources for Parents During COVID 19, which  provided a centralized hub for parents to learn about newresources. 

2019-2020 Highlights, including Fall 2020:

Early Education and Child Care

• Annual Early Education and Child Care Fair: 60+ early education and child care providers shared resources with Columbia faculty, staff, students, and neighbors during the fall of 2019.  
• Demystifying 3-K and Pre-K Workshop: helps participants consider Pre-K and the new 3-K NYC public school options to make informed decisions. 
• Parenting on the Tenure Track networking event: developed to build community among Junior Faculty parents. 

K-12 Schooling and Parenting

• Parent-to-Parent School Network: a growing network of Columbia K- 12 families (and recruits) in a broad range of schools (public, private, charter, parochial) serving as a supportive resource to learn first-hand from each other.
• We worked with the Neuropsychological Evaluation Service at CUIMC to develop protocols to improve and expand testing options when appropriate for Columbia affiliates’ children 
• College Coach Service: a new program in collaboration with Human Resources that provides support with college search, essay writing, financial aid, and developing savings plans.
• Continuing our collaboration with the Columbia University Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CUCARD), we hosted two fall workshops for families: “Managing Remote Learning: Strategies for Parent and Child,” and “Helping Your Teenager Through the COVID-19 Era: What to Expect.”

Non-Columbia Housing and Relocation Support

• Annual Reception for Newly Hired Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty and Spouses/Partners: a fun networking event cosponsored by the Office of the Provost to build community. In October, 2019, sixty-seven people attended.  In October of 2020, we successfully shifted this event online and more than 40 people joined the Zoom reception. 
• Neighborhood Guides: We created guides to six popular, commutable areas around the NYC Metropolitan area.
• The Process of Purchasing a Property: This wide-ranging workshop answers the FAQs of all stages of buying a co-op, condo or house. 
• One of our most popular workshops, Cut the Clutter and Get Organized, went online and offered many strategies that appealed to attendees who are spending a lot of time at home. 

Faculty/Spouse Partner Dual Career

• These individualized sessions provide advice and direction for newly recruited faculty spouses/partners by our experts who offer job search/career management resources for the non-academic search. During this year, we worked with 39 individuals in various stages of job searches.  

Programs to Support Caregiving and Caregivers

Adult/Elder Care Resources

We know that many colleagues are members of the “sandwich generation,” managing responsibilities for both children and aging family members. We provide access to research and referral services, elder care needs assessments, an elder caregiver database, back-up care, and live, virtual, and prerecorded workshops.

• Bright Horizons: Years Ahead and Sittercity provides access to additional supports for accessing adult/elder care resources and making regular care arrangements.

• Workshops on Long-Distance Elder Caregiving, Dealing with Aging Parents’ Finances, and Identifying and Coping with Depression in the Elderly were held virtually. 

Breastfeeding Support

The Office of Work/Life maintains and provides access to twenty Lactation Rooms across all campuses. The rooms are equipped with hospital-grade pumps to ease the burden of nursing parents returning to Columbia.

• Development of University Lactation Policy: developed in collaboration with Human Resources and General Counsel to meet legal requirements and provide improved guidelines for supporting the needs of breastfeeding faculty and staff.
• Addition of Lactation Rooms in: The Forum (Manhattanville), and the Georgian Building (CUIMC).
• Offered three Breastfeeding Basics workshops (two were offered in FY 2019) to meet the needs of more Columbia families.
• In order to ensure the safety of Lactation Rooms users during COVID-19, we developed new protocols including requiring mask-wearing in the rooms and using the scheduling system to avoid overlapping reservations in shared spaces to maintain social distancing. We also worked with Facilities to confirm proper cleaning protocols, especially on high-touch surfaces.

Back-up Care

Providing a program to care for adults/elders and children when normal care arrangements are interrupted or when short-term care is required.

• Increased the annual hours benefit from 100 to 150 hours of care per fiscal year.
• Added 50 Infant Transition Hours during the first year of life.
• Added access to additional family supports including: preferred enrollment at regular Bright Horizons centers; preferred waitlist standing at Bright Horizons centers; access to tuition discounts at non-Bright Horizons centers in their network; Sittercity database for regular care; tutoring and test prep services; and elder care information and resources.

Well-Being

Focusing on faculty and staff well-being is another way the Office of Work/Life supports the personal and professional success of Columbia colleagues.   Programs address many aspects of well-being including: physical activity, food and nutrition, weight management, mental/emotional health, space design and ergonomics, and financial well-being.

Physical Activity

• Launched cross-campus digital step challenge to engage the broader University community in a physical activity program. 
• Yoga videos posted on the Work/Life website.
• A Virtual Full-Body Fitness workshop kept people moving in the fall of 2020.
• Our ongoing series, Take a Break: Stretch and Re-Set, continued to attract a dedicated following each week.

Food and Nutrition

• Finalized and published the Healthier Columbia Food and Beverage Standards, including guidelines and recommendations for implementation.
• A workshop on Strategies for Weight Management: Building Healthy Habits in Today’s World, in collaboration with CUIMC’s Metabolic and Weight Control Center, addressed realistic ways to stay on track during the COVID era. 

Mental/Emotional Health

• Sharon Salzberg, one of the founders of the current meditation movement, offered a series of three workshops – one on each campus. They were moderated by Columbia experts and attracted a diverse audience.

Space Design and Ergonomics

• Well-being Design Principles, developed with the input of Columbia faculty and senior leadership, were finalized and guidelines published on the Work/Life website.
• University Ergonomics Program expanded across campuses, including access to a certified ergonomist and workshops (university-wide and for individual departments).