COUNCIL OF COLLEGES OF ARTS & SCIENCES
45th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LouisianaNovember 10-13, 2010
SESSION VWorking with Dual-Career
Academic Couples: Opportunities, Challenges, and
Solutions
ORIENTING QUESTIONS
Should institutions allow dual hires?
General policy or handle cases on ad hoc basis?
ORIENTING QUESTIONS
Who is responsible for developing policy?
Does one size fit all Colleges/Departments?
THE GOOD
Establishing ground rules Maintaining professional courtesy Keeping confidences Acting independently Working toward power parity
THE BAD
The opposite of the good: breaking confidences, acting as one person, being discourteous, and one partner riding on the work or reputation of the other
The department members judging one partner by the other
THE UGLY
Breaking up—Case Studies When one partner doesn’t get tenure and the other
does When one partner is let go before going up for tenure
WHAT THE NETWORK PROVIDES
Expeditious consideration for Eastern faculty and administrative vacancies.
Expeditious consideration for employment with cooperating area employers.
Introduction to local groups to assist in networking attempts.
Current information about local employment markets and demographics.
RESULTS (College of Sciences)
COUPLES DEPARTMENTS
A BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
B MATHEMATICS/COMPUTER SCIENCE
C BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES LIBRARY
D CHEMISTRY COLLEGE OFFICE
E PSYCHOLOGY ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY
F POLITICAL SCIENCE
G SOCIOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGY HUMAN RESOURCES
H CHEMISTRY
I CHEMISTRY
CHALLENGES In a small university town, there are few employment opportunities for two career couples; thus, if one party fails to get employment, the couple might choose to relocate elsewhere.Without clear policy guidelines, there is no obligation to do anything. When the couple works in one department and one spouse is chair, there is concern that confidential matters might be shared with the other spouse, albeit inadvertently. People assume that you are the same person (e.g. communicate through one spouse to convey something to the other). You do not get credit for your collaborations as much as if you were collaborating with someone else in your Department. People often think one spouse is "coat-tailing" the other. This often starts from the original hiring (e.g. there probably were not 2 positions initially).
More Challenges You cannot serve on the same committees due to perceived conflicts of interest. People assume you have the same opinion on any subject (controversial or not). You may not get as many resources initially (e.g. start-up) or later on. We have noticed both here and other places that we never both get University internal grants in the same semester. There is suspicion from other faculty that you have been given "special privileges" that stem from your initial hire. The one spouse who is seen as the "coat-tailer" is constantly trying to prove themselves, or at least has been put into a position to do so. We will never both be able to be in a position of "power" in the Department, so Jim will be limited in his potential to advance - e.g. he would have liked to have been EVB coordinator
Research suggests that faculty are increasingly having academic partners
Research suggests that faculty choose an institution based on the availability of an academic job for their partners
Dual-career couples have emerged as a critical recruitment and retention tool
Sharing the workplace is an important part of work/life balance for academic partners
Introduction
I hired Drs. Cornn and Miglito as a dual hire and took it upon myself to mentor them
Search challenge: the two best applicants in the pool were married and we had only one position
We hired one as permanent faculty, and negotiated to hire the second in a temporary position
Brief historical background
It helped the department to hire better quality candidates
It provided a good signal for other faculty about the department commitment to family issues
Benefits for the Department
Life dedication Participation and integration into the
community Investment and participation in University
events
Benefits to the University
Understand the constraints and demands of each other’s academic job
Experience greater satisfaction Easier to balance work and family
responsibilities
Benefits for the couple
Colleagues feared that they may vote as a single voice
Colleagues concern that the couple might bring home issues to the workplace
Colleagues uneasiness to talk about personal problems due to sharing of information
Colleagues concerns that marital issues could affect the environment of the department
Challenges for the Department
Negotiate how the benefits for one compares with the benefits for both
Insure that the “trailing spouse” felt equally respected
Concerns that their home life could be overwhelmed by work issues
Challenges for the couple
Feel limited about being friends with other colleagues, issues of trust
Restricted from participation as a department member in the P&T case of the spouse
Currently, they are dealing with one of them becoming the department chair
Challenges for the couple