Parental Leave FAQs

All regular benefit eligible employees are eligible to request either Paid or Unpaid Parental Leave.

• If you are a regular benefit eligible employee with one year of service who has worked at least 1250 hours in in the last twelve months you are eligible for Paid Parental Leave.
• If you are a regular benefit eligible employee who has worked less than one year and/or has worked less than 1250 hours in the last 12 months you are eligible for Unpaid Parental Leave.

If you are eligible for FMLA, it will run concurrently with your Parental Leave.

Family Medical Leave Policy

You are eligible to request up to 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave.  You are required to use any accrued paid time off such as sick, vacation or may use compensatory time in order to stay in a paid status. You will be placed in an unpaid status when accrued paid time off balances are depleted.

Yes, if you are a regular employee receiving benefits.

Normally Parental Leave is taken continuously, but if approved by your department you can take it as reduced schedule or intermittently. Talk to your department if you do not want to take all of your Parental Leave in one continuous block.

If eligible you may request up to twelve work weeks of Parental Leave of Absence for the birth or the adoption or placement of a child. Benefits are also available in the event of a still birth or miscarriage.

No. You can only request one Parental Leave per birth or adoption\placement event. The number of children involved does not increase the length of paid Parental Leave granted for that event.

All Parental Leave must be used within 12 months of when your Parental Leave began.

It would depend on if you used all of your Family Medical Leave entitlement.

• If it is for the same birth and bonding event, and you used your entire 12 weeks of Family Medical Leave entitlement in 2022 you would not be eligible for Paid Parental Leave in 2023.
• If it is for the same birth and bonding event, and you did not use your entire FMLA entitlement you would be eligible to use some Paid Parental leave in 2023.  For example, if your birth and bonding event date was 08/01/2022 and you only used 6 of the 12 weeks of your FMLA entitlement, then you would be eligible to use up to 6 weeks of Paid Parental leave between 01/01/2023 and 08/01/2023.

No. Unused Parental Leave is not eligible to be paid out. Unused Parental leave will be forfeited 12 months after your parental leave began. 

No, Parental Leave cannot be donated to other employees. 

Paid Parental Leave may be used in cases of stillbirth. In such an event, an eligible employee can request up to 12 weeks of Parental Leave. Parental Leave is used in place of bereavement leave. 

You may request up to 2 weeks of Parental Leave immediately following the miscarriage. Miscarriage is defined as the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week.

Parental Leave is normally approved to begin on the date of birth or the date of the adoption or placement of your child.  If needed, you can request to start your Parental Leave up to two weeks before the anticipated eligible event.

Talk to your leave advisor if you need to start your Parental Leave before the anticipated eligible event,but remember starting Parental Leave before the anticipated eligible event does not extend your Parental Leave period.

You may commence Parental Leave at any point after you assume physical custody, provided that an adoption is in process.

You will continue your benefits while on Parental Leave as long as you pay the employee premiums either through payroll deduction while in paid status or by personal payment when in an unpaid status. The university will continue to pay the employer’s portion of benefits premiums for the duration of the Parental Leave of Absence whether the employee is in a paid or unpaid status.

Employees on paid parental leave still get to take holidays and winter closure, but employees on unpaid parental leave will only get paid holidays and winter break if they are in a paid status.

Yes. Disability insurance coverage does not affect paid parental leave. Short-term disability insurance and paid Parental Leave can be used at the same time.  Talk to your leave advisor for more information.

If you fail to return to work at you full schedule for at least 30 calendar days you will be required to reimburse the University for the salary and benefits paid on your behalf during the paid Parental Leave period.

Requests for Parental Leave will be submitted through the online Leave Request Form. You should submit your request at least thirty days in advance of the need for leave. In addition, you should notify your supervisor that you will be requesting parental leave.

Failure to follow procedures or timelines may result in the denial or delay of Parental Leave of Absence and paid time off if eligible.