Inside Higher Ed: How a Search Can Change an Institution
wasn’t looking to move. A bioengineering professor at the University of Pittsburgh, she had a great job, a lab pulling in seven-figure grants and a partner who was doing a postdoc.
But Louisville doesn’t give up easily. The university is pushing for increased national visibility — particularly in science and technology. Bertocci’s work focuses on tools that help children who have been the victims of child abuse and other physical injuries, and her lab is considered a leader in a field that combines child welfare, medicine, and engineering. So officials kept on coming back, offering her an endowed chair, a nice salary, help for her partner in locating a job. One day, Bertocci asked if her partner could be covered by domestic partner benefits and the officials recruiting her (academics, not HR folks) said that they assumed so, but would need to check.
As they found out, no such benefits existed for unmarried partners. Bertocci said she would make the move — but only with the understanding that the university would move toward offering benefits for domestic partners, something no university in Kentucky had done. Last week, Louisville fulfilled its end of the deal, when its board adopted a domestic partner program. In fact, the human resources division at the university had been meeting with gay and lesbian faculty members previously to talk about benefits issues so there was already interest before Bertocci’s recruitment.
Louisville trustees — clearly aware of the state political environment — stressed that they were not taking a stand on gay marriage or, in the words of one, “endorsing any lifestyle.” Officials have stressed issues of fairness and of competitiveness.
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