Spousal Hires: a Golden Opportunity

In his latest Heads Up column, Gary A. Olson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Illinois State University, suggests that colleges that refuse to hire dual-career couples out of a fear of being saddled with an undesirable spousal hire are missing out on a good thing.

As a case in point, he recounts the experience of a leading scholar and dean he knows who, before taking her current job, was up for a deanship at another institution that turned her down because it didn’t want to foot the bill for her spouse, who is a superstar in his own right.

By not being open to the idea of a spousal hire, the institution let a golden opportunity slip away, as “the dean’s husband would have been every bit as much of a catch for the institution as the dean,” Olson argues.

Such hires must be handled carefully, lest they produce resentment within a department, Olson says. The department should get to meet the spousal candidate and review his or her credentials, and “the administrator who makes the offer should be cognizant of salary compression and inversion issues with existing faculty members in the department.” But “a carefully vetted spousal hire” can be a boon, Drew writes:

Some of the best hires I have made over the years have been dual-career couples who ended up contributing substantially to a department’s culture and prestige. In fact, in a few cases, colleagues have commented that the partner was ‘even more of a catch’ or ‘even more impressive’ than the principal hire.

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