45 th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana November 10-13, 2010 S ESSION V Working with Dual-Career Academic Couples: Opportunities, Challenges, and Solutions

 Should institutions allow dual hires?  General policy or handle cases on ad hoc basis?

 Who is responsible for developing policy?  Does one size fit all Colleges/Departments?

A CADEMIC C OUPLES S HARING AN A CADEMIC H OME : W HO T AKES O UT THE T RASH ? Alisa White

T HE G OOD Establishing ground rules Maintaining professional courtesy Keeping confidences Acting independently Working toward power parity

T HE B AD 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

T HE U GLY 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

Godson C. Obia Eastern Illinois University

 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.

COUPLESDEPARTMENTS ABIOLOGICAL SCIENCES BMATHEMATICS/COMPUTER SCIENCE CBIOLOGICAL SCIENCESLIBRARY DCHEMISTRYCOLLEGE OFFICE EPSYCHOLOGYACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY FPOLITICAL SCIENCE GSOCIOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGYHUMAN RESOURCES HCHEMISTRY I

 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).

 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

Pat Mosto Dean 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

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

 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

 It helped the department to hire better quality candidates  It provided a good signal for other faculty about the department commitment to family issues

 Life dedication  Participation and integration into the community  Investment and participation in University events

 Understand the constraints and demands of each other’s academic job  Experience greater satisfaction  Easier to balance work and family responsibilities

 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

 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

 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

Best Practices for:  Policy Development  Implementation and Funding

Best Practices re:  Publicizing (what signals do we send?)  Non-Academic Partners