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?

ACADEMIC COUPLES SHARING AN ACADEMIC HOME: WHO TAKES OUT THE TRASH?

Alisa White

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

“DUAL CAREER NETWORK” AT EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

Godson C. ObiaEastern Illinois University

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

The dual hiring of a couple in the same department

(Case Study)

Pat MostoDean

Rider University

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

Compiled data from two institutions (Rider University and Rowan University)

Data

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

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Best Practices for:Policy Development

Implementation and Funding

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Best Practices re:Publicizing (what signals do we send?)

Non-Academic Partners