Life in a dual career

My wife and I have been a dual career couple, employed in the field of education, since our marriage in 1976. Our first job was in the same small middle-school in a rural community in the south. After one year we moved to an urban area in Texas where we spent 16 years. Working in a major city was not difficult for employment because of the various opportunities afforded by the large number of schools in the region. In 1994, after working at a professional school in the University of Texas System, I accepted an administrative position at a mid-tier, mid-western university. My wife and 10 year old son followed kicking a screaming all the way from Texas. Our university is located in rural Appalachia and is 70 miles from anything that an informed person might call a city. Unemployed and undervalued in her new surroundings, my wife began doctoral studies in the institution’s college of education. She excelled, as I knew she would, and was selected to serve as a contingent faculty during her 4 years of study. Upon graduation she applied for a tenure track faculty position in the same department. A proven teacher in both K-12 and post secondary environments, and a burgeoning scholar, the university mandated that she go through the search process. After much wrangling and anxiety she was offered the faculty position at a lower salary than any of her peers. Promoted to Associate Professor 4 years ago, she now is the leading grant writer, scholar, and teacher for her department and one of the most promising scholars at the University. I suspect that she is also the only “trailing spouse” that has gone through the process from student to professor. Many people assume that because I am in an administrative position that I trailed her. One of the most fascinating aspects of being in a dual career couple in the academy is the life outside of work. We have deep philosophical conversations about educational, management, and leadership theory. We discuss how and what could and should be done to enhance education at all levels. As our son left for college I began my own doctoral studies. The philosophical discussions in class paled to the weekly conversations with my wife and I often found myself presenting ideas that came directly from those discussions. As topics changed and the focus turned to leadership and management I took the lead, at home and in class, and at times I heard my thoughts and positions being articulated by my wife. Each of us has demonstrated success in our chosen fields. We each possess strengths that complement the others weakness and when we work together, as educational consultants, we are a formidable team. The strength of dual career couples is often passion for their work and for each other. I must confess that I marvel at my wife’s intellect but as important as that gift, she makes me a better person than I ever thought possible.

Douglas Franklin, at 10:30 am EDT on August 20, 2008

I do understand the reasons for hiring faculty partners, but:

1) Large research universities with large departments can absorb a lot of people easily. Smaller schools with smaller departments don’t always have the same ease of absorbing one more person (expenses, office space, teaching loads, lab space, etc.). Asking, for instance, a laboratory science department at a small school to hire the spouse of a new hire in humanities is quite a tall order. The start-up costs are considerable, and scarce lab space will have to be permanently reallocated.

2) On a related note, if a department was planning to do a search next year, and then this year an administrator says “Hey, this other department is trying to recruit Dr. A, and his/her partner Dr. B is really well-qualified in your field, why not hire him/her this year?", next year that administrator had better not say “Oh, no, you don’t get the search you were planning for this year, because with the addition of Dr. B your department is full.” Yes, the department has Dr. B, and Dr. B may be great, but if Dr. B isn’t in the subfield that the department was hoping to hire in, then the department may still need the expertise of a Dr. C.

If hiring spouses is considered to be an important practice, then spousal hires should not negatively impact a department’s ability to do future searches.

Finally, on a personal note: In my own college we have a few couples. Many of them seem to work out fine, but I can think of one where the trailing spouse is a weakness to the department. Then again, lots of departments have weak links who leveraged connections, so I suppose spousal hiring is not much different from regular academic hiring.

Assistant Professor of Physics, at 12:20 pm EDT on August 20, 2008

Dual-Career Couples

The article is an important study; the follow-up comments have been valuable. I advise the accompanying spouses and partners of job seekers. In a larger sense, I hope that my colleagues and I are building a community that values a work-life balance for all employees (not just those who are married), but we are not naive. Readers’ comments help me understand what is important to job seekers and how the best-intentioned plans can have unintended consequences. Keep writing.

Phyllis Brust, Director at GC HERC, at 8:50 pm EDT on August 20, 2008

Realities of Dual Careers

Thank you for clarifying my feeling that my unsucessful 7 year search for a tenure track position was due to my lack of one important qualification- a husband (or lover) in academia.

The “dual career couple” has always been a perk for the preferred candidate. Traditionally this was the male. In previous decades, it was an efficient and legal method of screening out unwanted female candidates by substituting those who were “controlled” by the male status quo. Let’s see some statistics comparing the number of women without husbands in academia who have achieved successful careers in that field to those with husbands in academia. (It might be difficult to count those with lovers in influential academic positions).

Nancy, Educator, at 10:10 am EDT on August 26, 2008