Wrong and Stupid

In Scientopia today, I present and discuss a reader's question about what a search committee can and can't consider in deciding which candidates to interview, with a particular focus on a common issue..

He's Not Here

In this month's Catalyst piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, to appear next week(ish), I discuss dual-career couples. As I was working on this essay, I decided to make headings of particular topics, and then I decided at some point to alphabetize the headings. Then I realized that I had quite a few headings, nearly the entire alphabet. Well, it was a quick leap from there to deciding to do a complete A to Z of dual-career couple topics; a framework that alternately pleases and disturbs me.

Anyway, that's what I did, and, because a certain annoying type of minor incident happened to me two (2) times today, I include here the relevant entry for the letter O*:

Offices. There are many nice things about being in a dual-career couple that has successfully landed two jobs in the same place. There are also continuing challenges, and minor annoyances. An example of the latter is when colleagues or students are looking for my spouse but can’t find him, so they come to my office and ask me where he is. Thus far, I have confined my responses to polite answers (most typically: “I have no idea”), but a few times I have looked under my desk and in a drawer, then announced “Well, he doesn’t seem to be here.” I have been tempted to get a leash and hold it up when asked the “Where is your husband?” question and say “Oh no! He’s off the leash again!”, but have not yet done so.

* This is the original text. An editor had a go at the text and changed a few minor things. For example, when it appears in The C of HE next week, the last phrase will appear as "Somehow I have resisted the urge".

In today's two situations, I found myself saying "He's around", so at least the person asking knew that he was in town and, if they only looked harder and longer, they would surely find him. I don't usually want to be so helpful in these cases, but in this case I liked the two people who asked me.

I don't know how many readers find themselves in this situation, but if you do: Are you polite or not-so-polite? Are you helpful or not helpful? Perhaps it depends on the situation; e.g., Do you want to help the particular person who is interrupting your day to ask where your spouse is or would you prefer to be unhelpful?

There are probably non-spousal analogies of this situation, particularly for people who have conveniently located offices, so that people tend to stop by and ask about the current location of someone else in the building, saving themselves a trip upstairs (or wherever) but interrupting your work.

Trailing Spouse

A reader writes with a description of her situation as a tenure-track professor whose department hired her husband and then created a position for her as part of a hiring package. At the end of her description, she has some questions:

I am writing with a question regarding the issues of the two-body problem and trailing spouses. When scientists talk about the "two-body problem", they are usually referring to the challenges associated with finding two academic jobs in the same department/university/city. My husband and I were fortunate in that we were able to overcome this challenge: we both have tenure-track jobs in the same department. After several years together in this department, I am realizing that there is another component to the two-body problem that I had not anticipated: although we have equal jobs, we are not treated as equals. I am not sure if this is the result of 1) difference in job performance; 2) gender; or 3) trailing vs. non-trailing spouse. Our job performances are relatively comparable, we each have our strengths and weaknesses, but overall each of us is achieving the goals that were set by our department and both of us on track for tenure. Regarding gender, there are some female tenured or tenure-track faculty in our department; however, there is a bit of a boys network in our department (important things are often discussed behind closed doors and in the men's room - seriously, I can hear the conversations from the hallway - not that I linger but occasionally pick it up in passing...). I am writing to see if you or your readers have any insight into inequities arising as a result of the trailing/non-trailing spouse issue.

In our situation, my husband was offered a position first. Our negotiations led to a second position (mine) in which I was provided similar resources in terms of space, start-up, salary etc. Based on our negotiations, which were extremely fair, we assumed that we would be treated as equals in our department.

I am very disappointed to report that the traditional two-body problem has morphed into something much subtler but more troubling. Despite starting on nearly equal footing, several inequities have developed since we started our jobs. For example, despite equal teaching components of our job, our teaching loads are far from equal. Since we joined this department, my teaching assignments have involved more (different) courses, with more students per course, with courses that meet more often during the week. My husband has taught fewer courses with fewer students, which meet less often during the week. Is this the result of savvy planning by my husband? I don't think so, these were the assignments handed down by the chair.

A second example comes from service assignments. I have been asked to serve on numerous, sometimes time-consuming but largely inconsequential committees where as my husband has been asked and has served on every major decision-making committee we have (e.g., graduate admissions, finances). I am disappointed to report that these inequities have been consistent across time, and at this point the situation appears to be worsening as he is benefiting from lower teaching loads (more productive research program) and leadership positions within the department (e.g., he is regularly consulted about space and equipment needs). I am in the extremely demoralizing position of having to communicate my professional needs through my husband, as he is in a position with some leverage and I am not.

Is it common that the trailing spouse, although equal in job description, is not on equal footing?

Have your readers observed inequities between trailer and non-trailer persisting and in some cases expanding over time?

How frequently is the trailing spouse female relative to a man being the trailing spouse?

If the man is the trailing spouse, are the same inequities encountered?

******

I don't know the answer to the general questions, but I can mention my experience relevant to the second question. In my case, the initial offer was to my husband, and I was hired as part of the deal. Longtime readers know the background, but, briefly: I was already a tenure-track professor at another university and we could have both stayed there with TT positions rather than going to the new university, so the only way the new university was going to get my husband was to hire me as a TT professor as well.

In that sense, I was a trailing spouse. Some colleagues were very happy that I had joined the department and in fact were more interested in my research field than my husband's; they treated me as a valued member of the department from the beginning. To others, I was less visible and was mostly just a useful person to have on committees because I was good at getting things done. To some, I was completely invisible despite the fact that my research was going well and I arrived with a CAREER award.

Inequity was built into our positions from the start. My husband was given more start-up and better lab space. I took a pay cut from my previous position, and I was given more service work than my husband, in part because some committees had to have a woman, and there weren't (and still aren't) many of us. I was appreciated, but not seen as a leader. I was never put in charge of anything important.

Things changed with time, so I can report, in answer to the second question, that inequities don't need to persist and magnify with time. A very key element to eliminating the problem for me was that I had a very supportive senior colleague.

Also important for me were some awards that I received that were of the sort that my faculty colleagues respected and that gave me some visibility. These were awards for which I was nominated, so it was again very important to have an effective mentor who was proactive about helping me. I never had an official mentor, but my kind senior colleague served this role better than any officially designated mentor. Is there anyone who can be your advocate in this way?

Have you talked to your chair about the situation? Is he/she someone who would be willing to look at the data (your teaching/service load relative to others at a similar career stage) and work out a constructive solution? If you've been a diligent department citizen, a sane administrator would not think you are whining but instead would see that there is a problem to be solved.

Perhaps I would have reached this point anyway -- the point at which the early trailing/inequity experiences seem very far away and almost absurd to remember -- without a mentor of sorts, but it's easier if you have some help.

Also, as your career progresses and you get tenure and younger faculty are hired, they will not think of you as "trailing", and may not even know this history, so what is foremost in the minds of some older colleagues will not even occur to your new colleagues. Eventually, if things work out, you will forget about it too, as I do unless I have reason to think back on days of yore. I hope that's how things go for you as well.

Breathing Room

The Sunday Styles section of The New York Times yesterday has an essay by a woman who is part of a 2-career academic couple of English professors. Or, I should say that she was a part of an academic couple until her husband was denied tenure at his college, and thereafter reinvented himself (quite happily) in a career in "investing".

Most of the essay describes the history of this couple as an academic pair. Most of it sounds rather familiar, including that the couple spends some time living apart with jobs at different institutions until finally, luckily, they both get academic jobs near each other.

What also sounded familiar were the concerns of hiring committees and departments about the academic coupleness of these people. The author, Caroline Bicks, gets an interview for a position, but before the campus visit:

..a professor of mine confided that a member of the interview team had contacted him about my candidacy and asked, “Is the husband going to be a problem?”

The wife, however, does not seem to be a problem for the husband:

No one on his interview committees seemed to be sniffing around for info on his “problem” wife. Maybe they assumed that men put their careers first, or that women are less serious about theirs. It felt as if my wedding ring was a hurdle I had to clear to prove my commitment to academia, while Brendon’s was a badge of stability and good-guy gravitas.

Actually, that is different from my husband's experience back when we were applying and interviewing for jobs. He was asked about me at more than one interview. I was definitely seen as a potential problem. Hooray for equal-opportunity unethical questioning by hiring committees?

During her interviews, Bicks also made sure not to seem "too eager to have children any time soon."

I know other women have been asked directly about actual and potential children, but I was never asked about this during interviews. When some interviewers started talking to me about schools in the area, I wondered if they had ulterior motives, but in most cases I think they were people with families and were genuinely trying to give me useful information in case I got the job.

The author's life in an academic couple then veers in a new direction when her husband is denied tenure "Despite a teaching award, a book contract and extreme collegiality". That's rather chilling, but the story has a happy ending for this couple:

Still, it turns out that being two separate bodies has its advantages. For one, it’s given us a lot more breathing room, since we aren’t endlessly comparing our jobs, progress and institutions. And with distance comes perspective. Watching Brendon’s successful reinvention has pushed me to try new kinds of writing — to tell my own stories, and not just Shakespeare’s.

I suppose my husband and I compare our jobs and career progress to some extent, but I don't feel competitive in any way, nor stifled by the fact that we are in the same field. I do not need any "breathing room", and I enjoy the benefits that come from being married to someone who totally 'gets' my job and my professional life.

Strangest of all is the last sentence of the essay -- the last sentence in the excerpt above. I suppose we can all find creativity in the strangest of places, motivated by various unexpected events in our lives, but the implication is that the lack of "breathing room" in an academic couple might somehow stifle creativity(?).

If you are in an academic couple, and especially if you and your significant other are in the same general academic discipline, where do you fall in the spectrum between 'my significant other totally gets my job and professional life' (and that's great) and 'we are endlessly comparing our careers and progress' (and this is stressful/stifling)?

Perhaps most people are somewhere in between, or perhaps the answer varies with time and career stage, but how does it balance out for you?

I Am A Total Hypocrite

First of all, I'm taking a little break from blogging for a longish weekend -- Friday through Monday. Comment moderation will be sporadic today, and will then diminish to nothing, resuming early next week.

Second, I am a total hypocrite. If someone introduced me in a professional setting as "X's wife" (X, of course, being my husband), I would be really annoyed if that is the first thing people were told about me. In fact, I have been annoyed by this very thing in the past, especially when introduced to an audience just before I give a talk, but also when introduced informally to a group of Scientists at a conference.

But, not long ago, someone introduced my husband to some colleagues at a conference as "FSP's husband" (using my real name, not FSP), and I was amused. Fortunately, my husband was amused as well.

I can sort of rationalize the hypocrisy because the situations are not equivalent. In the past, before "The End of Men"* of course, being introduced in a professional setting as someone's wife could be interpreted as defining you primarily in your role as a wife rather than in your role as a scientist. For example, being introduced as X's wife just before I give an invited talk on my research involves more than mentioning a neutral social factoid about my life; it says "Here is the most interesting thing about this woman. We'll get to her accomplishments in a minute, but for now you should know who her husband is."

My husband has never been introduced before a talk as "FSP's husband", whereas I have been introduced as his wife just before I give a talk.

It's less of a big deal if it happens when being introduced to a group of people standing around a poster at a conference (for example), although it can still be annoying, depending on the people/context. In those settings, spouse-centric introductions happen to both of us, depending on whether we meet a group that is more familiar with his research or mine.

I don't think that I will ever accept this mode of introduction as the first thing an audience is told before I give a talk on my research. If we get to a point, however, when being introduced as someone's spouse really is just a neutral social factoid that is brought up in some of the more informal of our professional interactions, then we can be equally amused by either scenario.

*Oh wait, that doesn't apply to the physical sciences; quote from the article: "Just about the only professions in which women still make up a relatively small minority of newly minted workers are engineering and those calling on a hard-science background.."

She's Just Not That Into Her Job

Earlier this summer I spoke with a colleague who mentioned in passing that a technician who was helping him when he visited another institution seemed a bit resentful about helping him, or at least was not as cheerful as she could have been about helping him.

I said: Think about how she feels. She has a PhD, did a postdoc, wrote some high profile papers, but then took a technician job at the institution where her husband is a big professor. She's good enough to have been a professor in her own right, but instead she spends her days helping others do their research, with no hope of advancing in her career.

My colleague looked puzzled. He said: She has nothing to complain about. She has a job and she and her husband live in the same place.

Then I realized: My colleague and his wife live several hours apart owing to complicated job/family issues. His wife is not an academic, but it still has not been possible for them to live in the same place for the past few years. He was thinking of the situation from the point of view of 'how lucky this couple is to be together in the same location'.

But then I thought: He should understand the technician's unhappiness (if I am correct about the reason for her job dissatisfaction). The reason my colleague and his wife live apart is because each of them would be unhappy if they gave up their present job and look a less desirable job in their spouse's current city of residence.

Perhaps living apart is so difficult that his instinctive reaction involves his wish to live in the same place as his wife, rather than first considering the reality of what that would involve if his wife quit her job, moved to his city, and took a job she didn't like. I am sure he is well aware of that, but his longing to have his family together dominates his feelings and point of view.

My husband and I lived apart for years while we were trying to find jobs we both wanted in the same or proximal location(s). We are lucky that it worked out for us and we never had to face the long-term implications of one of us making a sacrifice in career aspirations. However, perhaps it is because I confronted, at least hypothetically, the wrenching possibility of having to take a job I didn't want while my husband pursued his dream job that I projected a particular explanation for the spouse/technician's job dissatisfaction. [Note: I know from personal experience and other reports that she is in fact dissatisfied with her job, so I am not jumping to conclusions about that, at least].

I hope things work out for my colleague, but I also hope he will have some sympathy for this smart and talented scientist who chose family over career. She may well have made the best decision for herself and her family, but it can't be an easy thing to do.

2-Body Grads

Sometimes there is a cosmic convergence of real life, email messages, and the blogosphere about a particular topic. This is one of those times.

Last week an anxious colleague worried that he would lose his top choice from this year's grad applicant pool if the department did not also admit another student from the same department/university. What if they were a couple but only one got an offer of admission?

He did not know whether these two students were or were not a couple, and he asked me what to do. He showed me a draft of an email message he wanted to send to one of them (his top choice applicant), and I was horrified by what he had written. I told him that he could not ask her directly about her personal life. He did not like that advice, but he did not send the email.

Just then, a post by Zuska on a related topic appeared, and I showed it to my colleague. He and our very savvy grad program staff person then devised a way to ask the applicant, who already knew she had been accepted to the program, what factors might influence her decision about whether to come here or not. She did not divulge anything about her personal life and replied with additional information about her research interests.

She had written very passionately and impressively in her research statement about her experiences as one of very few female students in Science in her university/country. I can imagine that she has not had an easy time being respected as a scientist thus far, and would therefore not easily discuss her personal life with a potential advisor.

Meanwhile, my colleague found out via an indirect route -- by asking someone who knows someone who knows someone at that university -- that this woman is in fact engaged to the other applicant in question. Although qualified, the male applicant wasn't a top priority for admission, but now he is going to get an offer of admission in the first round.

It is possible things would have worked out eventually anyway. Perhaps if the female applicant received an offer and her partner did not, a Zuskaesque exchange of information would have occurred and the partner would then have received an offer. He is certainly qualified and might have received an offer after the first round; he's just not a superstar like his fiance. My colleague feared, however, that by waiting he risked losing the superstar applicant.

I respect the young woman's reluctance to say anything about her personal life. I didn't deal with the 2-body problem until later, as an applicant for faculty positions, but I think I would have done the same at an earlier stage. I would have hoped that something would work out in one place that was good for both of us.

That's what I would do (and it seems that at least one other person in the world agrees), but now the question is, if an applicant to a graduate program wants to volunteer information of a personal nature, is this a good idea, and if so, how best to do it?

The 'best' answer may depend on the place. In my department, we've had grad applications from both members of self-confessed couples before, and in most cases one or both are accepted or not depending on the usual admissions criteria. The example described above is an extraordinary situation.

What if one person is applying to one unit of the university and another to a different unit? Different units typically have absolutely no influence over each other regarding graduate admissions (or anything else), so mentioning that a partner is attending or hopes to attend a graduate or professional program elsewhere in the university is likely to be treated as random information of no particular relevance.

Even so, I know some faculty who would consider a statement such as "I am applying to your program because my girlfriend wants to go to the vet school there" or even "I am applying to your program because I am interested in pursuing research with Professor X on Cool Science Topic, and also my significant other has applied to the Nanoneuroengineering Department" would be considered evidence that the applicant was not motivated by the Right Thing -- that is, a pure, intense, and unwavering laser-like focus on doing graduate Research in that particular department because of -- and only because of -- the awesomeness of the faculty. My advice is not to mention your coupleness in your application.

I hope that we faculty can look at applicants as real people with research interests and other interests and then make decisions based on who looks like they will be a motivated, smart, and creative student, even if they do take an evening off once in a while to go to a movie with their beloved. I hope that, but at the same time, what I want to see in an application is someone who is seriously focused on graduate research. That doesn't mean you can't have a life outside grad school, but there are only a few circumstances in which it is relevant to describe your personal life in your application.

Once you are accepted to a graduate program, however, you can volunteer information about your significant other's pending application to the same or different unit of the university if you wish to do so. In the case of applicants to different units of a university, it is likely to have no effect on whether your partner if admitted to the other program. I don't think it would hurt to ask, though -- but correct me if anyone has information to the contrary -- so maybe it would be worth bringing it up with the graduate advisor or your potential faculty advisor in an exploratory way.

In some ways, because there is less (money) at stake for a university and because students can apply to many universities to increase the chances of being together, it may be easier to solve the 2-body grad issue. Even so, some of the 2-body issues are the same and just as difficult whether the situation involves grad students or faculty -- Is there a best place for both of you? How do you decide that? And even if you agree on that, how do you both get to that place? Are you willing to be apart? If so, how far apart and for how long?

twobodyproblem

By popular demand, my probably-not-very-useful further thoughts on the issue of needing two academic positions at the same or neighboring institutions; i.e., the infamous twobodyproblem:

As I have written before, although I have experience with the twobodyproblem, this is an issue about which I do not have a strong opinion in terms of What You Should Do if you are in this situation. Everyone’s situation is different – every couple is different, every career path is different. There’s no one useful set of rules to follow to make sure that the problem is solved for everyone.

In addition, my own experiences may not be very relevant because every institution deals with this situation differently. I think that many institutions are becoming more proactive about finding solutions, including having specific protocols for how the cost of an 'extra' faculty position would be distributed among the department, college, and university (in the case of a large institution that has this type of administrative structure).

To answer some specific questions I have been asked about this topic:

If one of you already has a tenure-track position, should you look for a different position pre-tenure?

Yes. One of the most efficient ways to solve the twobodyproblem is to get an offer from another place. I was told by my first university that there was absolutely no way they could hire my husband.. until I got another offer, at which time a tenure-track position for my husband magically appeared.

Is it better to wait for tenure?

No, don't wait. You are more portable as an Assistant Professor. You may have more opportunities to move at the junior level.

How do you approach other universities? Do you explain your situation?

You can if you want, but you don't have to, even if your situation is widely known in your field. I applied for other tenure-track positions when I already had one, and I did not mention my husband in my application. Most people in my field knew about my situation anyway, and I got asked about it at every interview, as did my husband at his interviews.

When asked, I first made it clear that I was sincerely interested in the position for which I was being interviewed, and then said that I wanted to be considered based on my own merits, despite my twobodyproblem. We didn't try to negotiate two positions until we had offers, and this worked well for us, but again, other scenarios might work just as well.

You are not being dishonest if you don't mention your personal situation when applying for a job.

Do we have a better chance of getting two jobs if we live apart for a while?

I don't know. Again, every situation is so different, I can't answer this question for anyone but myself. If living apart is feasible, albeit difficult, perhaps try it for a while but agree on some sort of plan/time-frame for living in the same place at some specified time in the future, or at least agree to reevaluate the situation at some specific time.

In my case, I am convinced that my husband and I would not have ended up with two tenure-track positions in the same place if we had not lived apart for a few years. It was easier for University #2 to hire us both because we both had good records of being independent scientists with publications, grants, and (in my case) teaching experience, but we were still fairly junior. We were both hired as Assistant Professors, although I got some years of credit for my first job and came up for tenure soon after arriving at University #2.

Some couples end up living apart until they retire. I would not have done this, but fortunately we never had to face the choice of being a professor or living together.


Will I have a better chance of having an academic job and a family if I marry another scientist or should I marry someone in the art history department?

Some people think that the biggest challenge is if both members of the couple are in the same or similar fields. Different-field couples have the advantage of there being a chance that a large university will have two openings that might fit each person’s expertise, but academic couples in different fields also have serious challenges. In the case of same-field couples, university administrative structures can more easily handle the situation; e.g., if a single Dean is responsible for making decisions about faculty lines and budgets, it might be easier to make a second hire than in the case of different-field couples. That is, a science department will likely have no influence whatsoever on the hiring situation in the English department, and vice versa.

I am just musing. I don't think the level of difficulty in getting two academic jobs in the same vs. different fields would or should affect someone's decision about whether to marry a physicist or an art historian, although physicists are cuter.

Academic Economic Unitness

Today in a conversation with a colleague, my husband was stunned when the colleague made a somewhat bitter remark about how much easier my husband’s life is than his because my husband has a professor-spouse and therefore two salaries. This and some comments that followed offended my husband because he felt that the colleague was saying that one of us should work for lower pay and not be such an economic burden on the department. Perhaps there would be more salary money for those in one-salary families if the two of us weren’t sucking up so much of the department’s cash to fund our lavish lifestyle? I am exaggerating -- this colleague would never state his opinion so crudely. Even so, what millennium is he living in that he thinks that my husband and/or I should make a lower salary because we both work?

And why stop with penalizing members of two-career couples? Why should single/childless faculty get paid more than a meager amount when they are just going to spend their money on themselves? Why don’t we scale faculty salary according to the number of children and dogs that each person has? Cats should count as well, but they don’t seem to be as expensive as dogs, so there would have to be a different coefficient for cats in the salary equation unless n(cats) > 12. I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, but I would not include a salary adjustment for rodents or reptiles, and I am ambivalent about fish and birds. Should boy offspring count the same as girl offspring and/or should the offspring coefficient be adjusted for age and desire for high-end audio/video/computer equipment? [end of bizarre hyperbolic rant]

[start of serious blog-text] My husband’s negative reaction to this conversation was based in part on a long history of our both being underpaid relative to our colleagues in the department. The previous chair considered us an Economic Unit and saw no reason why either one of us should be paid according to our merits since together we made a decent salary.

The previous chair, as well as the person my husband was talking to today, are both in one-salary families, with wives who stay(ed) home with the kids. That’s their choice, of course, but it should be irrelevant to departmental decisions about faculty salary.

Perhaps it is harder for some of our colleagues to deal with our Economic Unitness because we are both Science Professors. If one of us were in a different career, would some of our colleagues still think the professor in the couple should be paid less, or would it be different because only one salary was coming from the department/university?

It struck me as kind of amusing that this colleague envies our situation. Salary considerations aside, I am sure he faces challenges in terms of balancing career and family, but I am fairly sure that he doesn’t have some of the difficulties that we do; for example, a sick kid or a no-school day doesn’t throw his work day into chaos. He probably also doesn’t realize that for years we spent half of our combined salary on day care. None of that should matter, however, to the simple fact that members of an academic couple should each be paid a fair salary, no matter how many spouses, offspring, or pets we have.

2-Body Good News?

A colleague at another university recently told me a long sad story about his department's numerous failed searches owing to the high housing prices and cost of living in his university's region. He said that unless an assistant professor is married to someone with a similar or higher salary, is willing to spend their life in decrepit rental properties, or enjoys long commutes, they decline the job offer.

Then he said BUT .. one way the university has found to get out of the situation is to hire couples, and in fact what used to be seen as a problem is now an opportunity. This doesn't mean that single people or members of non-academic couples are at a disadvantage -- his department still goes after the candidates it thinks are the 'best' -- but if one of those candidates is a member of an academic couple, the department and university are now more active in trying to make that situation work, rather than doing nothing, or even penalizing members of academic couples by weeding them out during the interviews.

Speaking of 2 Career Couples

Yesterday I heard a report on Marketplace (American Public Media) about 2-career academic couples. The story was motivated by the occurrence of the 5th annual Dual Careers Conference.

When I heard the story, I was in the final hours of a very long drive and was not in the best of moods. My impression at the time was that the story was extremely negative, although it does mention that some universities are participating in Higher Education Recruitment Consortiums (HERCs). HERCs are ".. clearing houses for all available jobs at all participating schools in a region." I suppose that could be helpful in some regions. It's not enough to solve the problem of 2-career couples, but it's some progress.

I just read the transcript of the Marketplace story today, and I still find it disappointingly negative. The husband and wife featured in the story have lived apart for nearly 20 years. In their interview, each one makes points that resonate with me; for example, about how neither one could ask the other to give up something that is such a major part of who they are. The interview is very sad because they've been apart for so long and decided not to have children because of their commuter relationship. It's important to tell stories like this, as it's a situation many academic couples face, but it's not the whole story by any means.

There are couples who have made the 2-career situation work. These examples are not so rare as they used to be, and it wouldn't be hard to dig up an example or two. Instead, the story ends with this sad quotation from one member of the long-separated academic couple: "God, I don't want to do this forever. It's such a hard existence."

Another Marketplace story of interest had to do with women's voices, and how the pitch of your voice can affect whether you're taken seriously.

NYU's Sheila Wellington says it's important for women to cultivate a strong voice.

OK, fine, but it is also important for men to learn to take women seriously even if we sound like women.

And then there's the issue raised by Deborah Tannen:

If they sound too young, Tannen says, they run the risk of not being taken seriously. On the other hand, if a woman sounds too authoritative . . . she .. has to choose between being a good authority figure and being a good woman.


An academic woman listening to these programs yesterday might well get the impression that she's likely to end up alone and afraid to speak in any voice.

Professor Ego

Lately I've been talking to academic friends and acquaintances who have made mid-career moves to other universities. In particular, I have been talking to those in academic couples, in which 2 senior hires are involved.

In one case, one member of the couple didn't have a tenure track job at the first university and doesn't at the new one, but the non-tenure track position at the new university is slightly better, and the new university is better overall for both of them.

In another case, one member of the couple is giving up a tenured professor position at the old university to take a research scientist position at the new university, so that they can both move to a better university. This is the case that has been making me really think. I'm not going to say whether it's the husband or the wife giving up the full professor position to become a research scientist (reluctantly, I should mention) because what I have been thinking most about is whether it matters. And whether I could do that myself -- that is, give up being a Professor to become a Research Professor. There's no real difference in status in my field between the two, so that's not the issue. Even so, I don't think I could, and I don't think my husband could. Even if I were allowed to teach as a research scientist, I would still feel like I was giving up something important, perhaps in part because I worked so hard to get where I am.

For me, this is just a thought exercise because all the positions my husband and I are considering at the moment are full professor positions for both of us. But what if one of us were offered our 'dream job' and the other were offered something else? This was our fear way back when we were searching for our first tenure-track positions, and I thought that kind of anxiety was over and done with. This is different (we do have jobs), but the stress of wanting to finding 2 jobs that we both like in a place we both like feels the same.

It's strange to think that it would be so hard to give up being a Professor. If I were a research scientist instead of a professor, the things I would be giving up are the things I like the least -- meetings, meetings, and more meetings. In addition, my opinions are ignored now, when I am a Professor, so what would be so different about being in a position in which I officially had no say in department governance? It would be different, and I guess I'm realizing that that difference is important to me.

Nepotism etc.

As a follow-up on the last post, I should note that there are of course university policies regarding people who are related. I am a few years ahead of my husband in seniority, but I have never been involved in any decisions or discussions involving his tenure or promotion. During both of his promotion processes, I left the conference room during discussions of his file, and never had private conversations with faculty colleagues about his promotions. I have recused myself on other occasions when decisions were made regarding my husband's research program or students. And we disagree often enough about department issues that we are not a "voting bloc".

In fact, we are so different in so many ways that the most common response is shocked surprise when students, faculty in other departments, and random other people find out that we are married. I am not sure exactly why it is so surprising that we are a couple, but whatever it is probably contributes to our not being viewed as a single entity and to our escaping some of the negative aspects that could come with being a couple in the same department.

There are some unique (=strange) situations that arise from our being in the same department. Example: last week, the department Chair had a talk with my husband about me -- the Chair expressed regret that he has been giving me stupid administrative tasks, and he wishes now that he had appointed me to a particular important position instead of the less-qualified guy he chose. Well, that's nice. I guess. He seems to have expected my husband to tell me the great news that I am respected more than I was, or at least more than I thought I was, but I would prefer to hear this directly from the Chair. But, if he didn't have this "indirect spousal communication mechanism" for conveying the information to me, perhaps I wouldn't even know it at all.

Some colleagues told me a few years ago that they weren't comfortable with my ever having a departmental leadership position because my spouse is in the same department. These same colleagues enthusiastically supported a male colleague whose wife is a faculty member in the department, somewhat undermining their ethical objections about me, but to no practical effect. No one was interested in discussing whether this meant that we as a department think that men can be more fair in nepotism situations than women.

I am not claiming that having couples in the same department is easy or even desirable, but it's an inevitable situation, and there are ways to make it work.

Academic Nepotism?

Does the concept of nepotism describe the hiring of both members of an academic couple by one university? Yes, I suppose so, even though neither member of the couple is the one making the hiring decision. It's not the same kind of nepotism as when John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Bobby as Attorney General. Nevertheless, it does involve at least one person in the couple's being hired because of their relationship to another.

In my field, there are rare examples of parent-offspring pairs in related fields of research, and I suppose that the famous name is a plus in some ways for the offspring, but I've seen it backfire for father-daughter pairs (the usual sexist rumors that he is really the brains behind all her research). Most often, the situation involves a couple, whether a married couple or long-term partners.

Another variable is whether both members of the couple are being considered simultaneously for hiring, or whether one has already been hired and the other is considered later (i.e., in the case of one member of the couple's not yet being done with his/her Ph.D. at the time the other was hired). The latter situation can be hard on the non-employed member of the couple, and these days still seems to require that a competing offer for both be obtained in order for both to get academic positions.

Nepotism is unavoidable if women are going to be hired in significant numbers at academic institutions. It's important to note that nepotism in this sense involves both the case of a woman offered a job by an institution that is primarily interested in hiring the other member of the couple (typically a husband) and the case of an institution wanting to hire a woman and also offering a position to her partner/spouse. In some cases, the university administration provides funds for the extra position, either permanently or as a 'bridge' to the next retirement in a department. Difficulties arise when departments have to fund the position, the positions are in different academic units of a university (and the higher level administration doesn't help facilitate the hires), and if both members of the couple require large amounts of start-up funding.

In most cases that I am aware of, the 'extra' person is not taking away a position from a 'more deserving' person out there in the applicant pool. It is important not to get into the mode of thinking that unqualified people (substitute name of underrepresented group) are taking jobs away from qualified people (substitute name of dominant group).

However, the Kennedy example aside, the concept of nepotism typically implies that a person being appointed is selected despite their lack of qualifications or abilities, and that's a source of yet more trouble for academic couples.

Most departments and universities hire faculty with the expectation that they will succeed -- faculty will get tenure and do well with whatever the research-teaching-service expectations are for the institution. So what to do if there is an imbalance between the qualifications of members of an academic couple? That is, what if one is qualified to be hired at a major research university and the other isn't?

I don't have The Answer. I don't think it's in anyone's interest to hire an unqualified person in a tenure-track position at a research university, but I think that the definition of 'qualified' needs very careful consideration in these cases. It needs extremely careful consideration, so as to be sure that the usual biases about what makes a successful scientist are not clouding the evaluation of a promising female scientist.

Another pitfall is hiring one member of the couple in a tenured or tenure-track position and the other in a low-level, low-respect position. That doesn't do anyone any good either -- not the couple, and not the department/university.

I stand by my statement that nepotism is required for women science/engineering faculty to be hired in significant numbers at academic institutions, particularly at universities and colleges that are rather isolated, leaving few to no other opportunities for alternative academic employment by one member of the couple. There's no reason, however, why nepotism has to be forced into the existing academic culture without the possibility of changing the culture. Why can't the culture itself change? Why does it have to be an all-or-nothing situation in which you get on the tenure track and either succeed or not in a certain amount of time? Why do non-tenure track positions have to be associated with so much less respect and so much less chance of career advancement? Is there room for other types of positions with different expectations in terms of the balance of teaching-research-service? The academic culture needs to change, and it needs to change at all levels -- administrators need to be creative, and faculty need to be open-minded.

Nirvana for Academic Couples

According to a gender-in-science expert at Stanford, Londa Schiebinger, who is quoted in a Nature feature:

..nirvana for married scientists in academia is two faculty (tenured or tenure-track) positions at the same institution or in the same area.

My husband and I are very aware that we are lucky -- we were hired as professors at the same university, each with a tenure-track position (now tenured), at the same time. We had a bi-coastal commuter marriage for years and we managed, but being together in one house and both having the careers we want is truly a great thing. However, I did not know that we had reached nirvana itself.

I hope I don't sound ungrateful for having my own tenured position and being able to live in the same house as my husband, but I think it would be nice if nirvana were a lot more nirvana-esque.

If the 2-body problem in academia is ever solved in a major, national/international way, will this simultaneously solve the respect problem many of us face on a day-to-day basis because it will increase the number of women science professors? Or does the respect problem need to be solved first, thereby paving the way for the rest?

What Do You Say?

What do you say when you're at a job interview and an interviewer (faculty member or administrator) brings up your spouse or partner even though they aren't supposed to?

First I should mention that one of my university's deans has said that she believes that universities should be able to ask this question, but from a proactive, positive point of view. That is, she wants to know who will need some creative accommodation for a spouse or partner, so that the university can get started on planning for this in time to make it a part of recruitment, rather than having it be a "secret" until an offer is made, when it may be too late to pull together 2 offers. This administrator is committed to increasing the number of women faculty in science and engineering, and she sees this as one way to do it.

But back to reality, my husband and I have both been asked about each other at every interview we've had, and in some cases, the 2-body situation was specifically cited as the reason why one or the other of us did not get a job offer. Yes, I know we could have caused a fuss about that, but it always seemed futile.

The more relevant question is: what do you say when your interviewer asks you point-blank "What about your husband/wife?" and you have to respond somehow. I've tried to walk the fine line between making it clear that I wasn't going to sit there and discuss my personal life in detail and not being defensive about it. I have had some success deflecting the conversation by deliberately misinterpreting the question as being about the relationship of my husband's research specialization to my own. In other cases, I have simply said "We're both looking for faculty positions and are just trying to get the best job or jobs that we can." My husband has said something similar when asked about me. Very few interviewers have pressed for more information after that first foray into unethical questioning. Maybe they just want to see what you'll do? Maybe they just want to show that they KNOW things about you?

I don't have any foolproof response to suggest, as situations and personalities can vary so much, so the only general advice I would give is to be sincere and professional in giving a brief response and then, smoothly and politely, turn the conversation back to your research and teaching ideas and accomplishments. In theory, if a department is interested in your work, it won't hire a less interesting or less qualified person just because that person doesn't have an academic spouse. In theory.

I can understand that hiring 2 people in one department can be logistically and financially difficult if both require significant startup resources and so on, but here's the stupidest reason I've ever heard for not hiring a couple in one department: the Voting Bloc excuse. I have heard this one so many times, and it amazes me every time. Are they saying that husbands and wives will naturally have the same opinions about everything or that the wife (or husband) will exert influence on the other to vote a certain way, and that this will shift the geopolitical balance of a department dramatically? In my department, "voting blocs", to the extent that they exist, are either generational or by sub-discipline, so I think the voting bloc thing is a myth. Maybe the people who believe in the Voting Bloc myth also would have been against giving women the right to vote nearly a century ago because we would just vote the way our husband's told us to?

I am still amazed and thankful that things worked out for my husband and me to both have great academic jobs in the same place. We have numerous colleagues around the country for whom it has also worked out to be in the same university or city, so we are by no means alone. Thinking back on all these cases, I think it is uncommon for both members of the couple to be hired straight out of a postdoc; more typically, both are professors (but in different places), or one is a professor at a 'good enough to leave' school and the other is a promising postdoc or research scientist. I know of a few cases where both were hired straight out of postdocs, so it can happen.

2 Body

Sometimes I think that universities are finally finding better ways to deal with academic couples, and then I see or hear something that shows that any progress in the last decade or two might have been transient or random. I know that there are financial realities regarding 1 vs. 2 faculty positions, but I think that an institution that figures out how to solve this "problem" will end up with a high quality, diverse, and content faculty, and therefore in the long run it makes sense to deal with this issue in a more systematic way, involving high levels of administration. But then, I think the same about universities/colleges that figure out how to offer high quality daycare for faculty, staff, and students, and there doesn't seem to be a huge rush to fix that problem either.

The situation with which I am most familiar is when both members of a couple are in the same field and would be hired by the same department. This is challenging, but for a university (rather than a small college) it may be less challenging than the situation in which the members of a couple are in different departments or other units of a university.

Anyway, my husband-to-be and I met in graduate school. By the time I defended my Ph.D. (about a year before he finished his PhD) and had an offer of a postdoc at another university, we sort of knew we might/maybe/perhaps would get married, but hadn't quite decided. We never even considered my not leaving to do the postdoc. Partway through my first postdoc year, I decided to seek another position for the following year rather than stay in the postdoc longer. I was enjoying the research, but the level of harassment by technical staff, one senior male professor (not my supervisor), and even some male graduate students, was unacceptably high and was interfering with my ability to do my work. I had several choices for my next position, including a tenure-track position at a small college. I decided not to take the tenure-track position because I knew that my partner would never want to be in such a small place with limited research facilities. We had agreed that if we didn't get the job of our dreams right away, we'd try for jobs at places where we could both reasonably exist and that were 'good enough to leave' (i.e., not dead ends, careerwise). We were both sure that this college would have been a dead end in terms of further opportunities for both of us.

I accepted instead a visiting professor position at a different small college -- a bigger name school than the other one and one that was quite similar to the one I'd been to as an undergraduate. I had long thought that I would most like to be at a small liberal arts college, since I had loved my undergraduate school and I have a strong interest in integrating science with liberal arts. People thought I was crazy to turn down a tenure-track position for a visiting position, but it worked out in the end, and the teaching experience turned out to be important in my later efforts to get another job.

I remember this as a stressful time because my husband-to-be had several choices of postdoc positions, including one that was geographically very close to the college where I'd be for the next year. He decided to take a position that was geographically distant (as in east coast-west coast distant) because it was the best place for his research. By this time, we'd decided only two things: (1) we were going to get married soon, and (2) we would pursue our careers in separate places for a while, making career decisions based on our individual research interests and goals, with the hopes that we'd eventually have options that allowed us to be together. If one of us got a great job and the other didn't, we'd deal with that if we had to.

During my year as a visiting professor, I learned many useful things; here's another list: (1) visiting professors/adjuncts are not treated well in general (huge teaching load, not a lot of respect from colleagues or administrators), (2) I was good at both teaching and research, and enjoyed both immensely, and (3) I did not want to be at a small liberal arts college. The last point came as a particular surprise to me.

Jobs were very scare in my field by this point, but one came up that was perfect for my research interests and was at a university with an excellent reputation for both research and teaching. I really wanted that job. At a conference that fall, I had a pre-interview with the department chair to see if they were interested in encouraging my full application for the position. I remember arriving for the interview just as the previous candidate, a prominent young man in my field, was leaving his interview. He not only shook hands with the department chair, but also gave the chair a sort of friendly pat on the shoulder -- I can't describe it exactly, but it looked natural and like something confident guys do together, and my heart sank because I couldn't do things like that. I had a rather awkward conversation with the chair, who was a rather awkward sort of person (but very nice), and left feeling disconsolate. Nevertheless, I was encouraged to apply for the job, so I did.

I was invited to interview. I was very happy and excited about that, but knew also that the other candidates were formidable and personable and I didn't feel too optimistic. I wondered if I was just an affirmative action interview. By this time, I was married and my husband was still a postdoc on the other side of the country. The interview was both great and terrifying. During the interview, I felt that it was going well. I had many discussions and conversations that were very interesting and friendly, but the issue of my husband kept popping up in illegal and unsettling ways. Faculty candidates are not supposed to be asked about their spouses/partners during interviews, but it always comes up. I didn't even know how they all knew about my husband -- we had only been married a few months, and I didn't know anyone personally at the place I was interviewing. But they knew. This place also had a lousy record of hiring and tenuring women, and the last two assistant professors had recently been denied tenure, so I kept telling myself that I was crazy to want to have a job at that place. But I did want to have a job at that place. I had no idea how I'd done in the interview because it had been such a mixed experience -- lots of positive interactions, lots of people telling me that it was only 1 job and there was no chance for my husband to get a position (I hadn't even asked.. it was just an interview).

The phone call from the chair offering me the job stands out in my mind as one of the all-time most thrilling moments of my life. That might sound pathetic, but it was amazing.

But of course there was only one position, and they weren't willing to do anything for my husband other than give him an office, adjunct status, and occasional teaching. He decided to stay in his postdoc longer, and we would continue commuting from coast to coast. We did that for 3 more years, all the while progressing in our careers individually. We spent summers together, other vacations, and a few other extended times (my husband taught a class one semester at my university, I had a semester research leave), and acquired lots of frequent flyer miles. We talked on the phone several times a day - sometimes 5-6 times/day - and we emailed constantly, and somehow it was a pretty good life.

We were both applying for jobs. I absolutely loved my job, but knew I had to look for other opportunities as long as my husband didn't have a tenure-track position. We both got interviews, and were always asked about our spouse. After I'd been in my tenure-track position for 3 years, a large university offered both my husband and me tenure-track positions. The two offers came about in large part because the provost of the university got involved and created a second position. The deal was that we would share 1.5 positions for at least the first year, and eventually would each have a full position. Once we had these offers, my university magically came up with a tenure-track offer for my husband. I was very torn -- I was doing well where I was, it was a nice place to live, and I was not worried about tenure. At the new place, I didn't know if I'd like it, and the tenure bar was higher, along with the pressure to get more and bigger grants. And we were going to have a baby that winter.

After a lot of agonizing indecision, we decided to move and make a fresh start at the other university, which was going to build a lab for my husband and which had excellent facilities in place for my research. It was a painful decision. I stayed another year at my 'old' university, finishing teaching commitments, and our child was born that year.

It was challenging showing up at a new place with an infant, but after a difficult year, we both knew we'd made the right decision. And after a year of sharing 1.5 positions, we were both upped to 100%, and after 2 years, I got tenure. Happy Ending.