April 15, 2008, 10:47 am
By Robin Wilson
When Leigh Ann Wheeler and Donald G. Nieman decided to get married, she gave up a tenure-track job in Florida in 2000 to move to Bowling Green State University, where he was dean of arts and sciences.
At first, Ms. Wheeler was only a visitor in the history department before working her way onto the tenure track and finally into a tenured position. But while she and her husband enjoyed working on the same campus, Ms. Wheeler says she never felt comfortable at Bowling Green. Some history professors, she says, resented that she was a spousal hire who was married to the dean. “It can create divisions,” says Ms. Wheeler.
So when Mr. Nieman began looking at job openings for provosts a year or so ago, Ms. Wheeler was not too thrilled by the prospect of being a trailing spouse all over again. Then the history department at the State University of New York at Binghamton e-mailed to ask if she…
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March 12, 2008, 5:33 pm
By Robin Wilson
Heather D. Flowe thought she had her first tenure-track job nailed down after she received an e-mail message last December about an offer from the psychology department at California State University-Dominguez Hills. Over the following months, she and the dean of the College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences even agreed on how much she would be paid ($65,000 for her first academic year and $16,000 for the summer), and she started talking with the psychology department about her teaching schedule for the fall.
But this month, Ms. Flowe received an e-mail message from the dean, Charles F. Hohm, saying the university would not be able to hire her after all. It stands to lose $6-million as part of state budget cuts. So the campus has decided not to hire six new professors that it had been negotiating with, including Ms. Flowe.
Sam Wiley, interim provost for Dominguez Hills, says that…
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February 22, 2008, 4:30 pm
By Robin Wilson
About 150 graduate students at the University of Chicago marched to the provost’s office this week to protest the administration’s financial-aid policy.
Last year the administration unveiled a plan that gives graduate students in the humanities, social sciences, and the Divinity School $19,000 each per year for five years, plus $3,000 each for two summers of study. The package, which the administration said would cost $50-million, is available only for graduate students who enrolled beginning in the 2007-8 academic year.
Graduate students who were already attending Chicago have complained that it is unfair to leave them out. They have lobbied the administration to provide the same benefits to about 800 graduate students who enrolled before 2007-8. Half those students, said Joseph Jay Sosa — a graduate student in anthropology — earn only $12,000 a year and have no summer support. And …
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February 13, 2008, 11:18 am
By Robin Wilson
Mark and Karen Muyskens shared a faculty job in chemistry at Calvin College, in Michigan, for nearly 20 years. They split the teaching load and did most of their research together. At times they even shared an office.
So last month when Ms. Muyskens, who was 46, died suddenly of septic shock, the college and Mr. Muyskens had to quickly decide what to do. Would Mr. Muyskens — who has three school-aged children — assume the couple’s job full time? Or should Calvin try to find someone to take over Ms. Muyskens’ half-time position?
The chemistry department felt it needed to act quickly. It had another faculty search under way, and the requirements for that job could change depending on what Mr. Muyskens wanted to do.
“The whole college said, Mark, you have to attend your family,” said Larry L. Louters, chairman of chemistry. “We’ll deal with whatever your answer is.”
Mr. Muyskens…
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February 11, 2008, 4:07 pm
By Robin Wilson
For 42 faculty members in the College of Science at Texas A&M University’s main campus, some fellow professors are more than just colleagues. They are family.
The college has 21 faculty couples — and two more pairs are on the way by next year. In all, the couples account for about 15 percent of the college’s professors.
About half the couples were hired in the last five years as part of a special push to create 70 new faculty positions in the sciences. The college didn’t necessarily look for couples, officials said, but having so many openings made it easier to consider them.
In some cases, administrators believe the ability to accommodate couples strengthened their hand. “With many of these couples, we would not have gotten either one of them if we didn’t have a position for both of them,” says Sherry J. Yennello, associate dean for diversity in the college.
That’s probably the…
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