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LIFE/^^e Charlotte
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Top workplaces for mothers
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK—Working Mother magazine
released its annual list of the top 100 places to
work, with its chief executive touting an
improvement in mother-friendly benefits in
corporate America.
Working Mother CEO Carol Evans, who
authored the book “This Is How We Do It: The
Working Mothers’ Manifesto,” said that in
order to retain female employees, a growing
number of companies are offering customized
schedules.
“There are some very, very creative ideas,
and this is all related to what we saw in the
past, with women dropping off the edge of a
diff, when they said it’s either working fuU
time or not at all,” Evans said.
This year’s list includes Bank of America
Corp. and V/achovia Corp., both based in
Charlotte. The list also includes 18 new names,
representing some chum, and Ihe magazine
cites growing concern among companies that
they win lose qualified female employees if
they do not upgrade Iheir benefits.
“Our coimtry needs women to have babies,
our companies need women’s brainpower and
time,” she said. “’ITiose two things going togeth
er really demand that companies wake up to
this new culture.”
The magazine used five main criteria as the
basis for its judgments: flexibOity leave time
for new parents, child care, elder care and the
number of women occupying top jobs.
The top 10 companies that best satisfied the
five criteria were; Abbott Laboratories; Bon
Secours Richmond Health System; Ernst &
Young LLP; HSBC USA Inc.; IBM Corp.;
PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP; Principal
Financial Group, and S.C. Johnson & Son Inc.
IBM and Johnson & Johnson are the only
companies that have been on the list every
year since it was initiated 21 years ago. IBM
offers new molhers the option to take up to 144
weeks of leave, Evans said.
The Boston Consulting Group is one of 18
companies new to the hst, for which the maga
zine solicits afqjhcations that consist of 550
questions. Amor^ tiie consulting group’s bene
fits are three months of paid maternity leave
and emergency child care.
Jiilie Gish, a 31-year-old project leader in the
Chicago office of the consulting company cred
its the maternity leave and flexiljle work poli
cies for easing her work life after the birth of
her son Charlie, who turned 1 on Saturday
Gish took the three-month paid leave and an
additional six weeks of xmpaid leave before she
returned to work on a 60 percent basis. Since
then, she has increased her workir^ time to 80
percent, and said she is grateful for how accom
modating the company has been.
“They do that because they recognize that
while women may need to take time out in
their careers, it is certainly in their interest in
the long run to offer flexible working aiTange-
ments,” Gish said.
Gish said she plans to have at least one more
child, and that after her children start school,
she plans to go back to work fuU time.
On the Net:
Working Mother Media:
\vww.workingmotherj.-omI
Boston Consulting Group:
hUp:f/wwwhcg.cmnJ
JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Patagonia Inc.;
Black colleges faee low enrollment
Continued from page 3B
dents. The University of the
District of Columbia, which
boasted 9,663 students in
1995, had 5,168 in 2004.
More troubling are the
names of those foundering in
recent years, black power
houses like Fisk, Thskegee
and Bennett, revered as the
“Vassar of the South.”
That school had a $2 million
but^et deficit when the for
mer president of Atlanta’s
Spelnian College, Johnetta
Cole, arrived in 2002.
Expeits point to an expand
ing black middle class and the
continuing effort of predomi
nantly white—and often’
ehte—schools to diversify
emoUment. Lacking affirma
tive action programs that
have been questioned on con
stitutional grounds, colleges
and universities have worked
hard to attract and keep black
students.
At Virginia, for instance, a
peer advisory progi'am pairs
incoraing black students with
black upperclassmen for guid
ance. Last year, tiie school
expanded Access UVA, a
financial aid progi’am. And
when black students matricu
late, they’re presented a stole
of bright African cloth in a
ceremony called the ‘Donning
of the Rente."
Valerie Gregory director of
outreach at the
Charlottesville school, is a
Hampton graduate. She’s see
ing more students like her
daughter—heady black
youths who don’t feel like they
must be siuTounded by other
blacks to be successful.
“Students are more apt to
want to be in an integi-ated
environment and now aren’t
as shy to look and see if
there’s a possibihty” said
Gregory, whose high schooler
is weighing mostly white
James Madison University in
the Shenandoah Valley
against Spelman.
Lomax, of the United Negro
College Fund, said black par
ents are interested in degrees
finm schools with universal
clout—and schools where
their childien will receive the
support to graduate.
At Virginia State University
for instance, only 40 percent of
eligible black students gradu
ated in 2005. U.Va. graduates
86 percent of its black stu
dents, on average.
Mindful of enrollment ero
sion, HBCUs are trying new
strategies, stepping up mar
keting and building on repu
tations in specialty majors.
Lomax’s group, which gives
scholarships to students
attending 39 private histori
cally black colleges, I’ecently
initiated the Institute for
Capacity Building, a program
that wiU. help schools build
funds, shore up academic
gaps and improve recruit
ment. The idea is to help
schools identify strengths,
then make those programs
airtight and promote them
heavily, he said.
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