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[Tenured Feminist]

I agree that the financial resources are crucial.  I think I actually started my overlong post on that point, and I wouldn't want to diminish it.  But I think that far too often, lack of resources is the end of a discussion rather than the beginning.

At my institution and many others, "lack of resources" is not a bar to putting together full-time, full professor positions for partners of senior faculty or administrators that the university is recruiting.  It's not a problem when they're building a new sports arena or throwing fancy parties for high school potential athletic recruits.  I could go on and on, as I'm sure others could as well.

But my point here is that there are two ways to look at a trailing partner.  One is to sigh and say that s/he is a major problem that must be grudgingly accommodated as cheaply as possible.  Another way is to say that here is a talented, well educated, competent person (if all these things are true), who likely has a set of skills that can benefit the university.  A smart university can probably get cheaper and better labor out of a trailing partner than many other alternatives, and should think creatively about how to do this.  The right question, IMHO, is "what can this person do for the university, and how can we use existing resources to enable this to happen?"

After all, is it efficient or wise to let the university become a) a revolving door for partnered individuals or b) retain only those partnered individuals who cannot publish their way out or c) stop hiring people with partners?

Again, I know of four universities -- all state universities with relatively similar resource constraints to mine -- who will benefit by picking off people with unhappy partners from my institution.  None of these people wanted to leave my university and could have been retained, but their partners were all completely fed up.  That means four job searches next year.  And the people who come in will probably have to be paid more than the people who are leaving.  Talk about wasting resources!

[Leah Larkin]

Elaine Godfrey wrote:

> Perhaps we could have a much more civilized, useful, and
> productive discussion (without name-calling, uncalled-for
> criticism, etc...) if each of us gave our name instead of
> hiding behind anonymous pseudonyms.

Bravo!  I, too, have been dismayed at the open hostility displayed in this forum.  What gives?

I wonder if some of us are just too ivory-towered and idealistic to realize that nepotism happens across the board, from who gets the receptionist job at the local lawnmower repair shop to half-million-dollar lobbying gigs for senators' wives.  Are academics really asking for anything out of the norm of society?

Oh, and if you're going to berate someone for misspelling "accommodate", you might want to check a dictionary first.  Sheesh.

[Another anon]

Cheaper and better? So are you advocating offering trailing spouses lower salaries because they are trailing spouses? Are you suggesting the creation of a permanent academic underclass of trailing spouses, who are primarily female and who received their positions because of their husband's status, not through their own merits? In other words, you are advocating discrimination on the basis of marriage. Is this what feminism has come to?

Yes, we all know that it happens in the upper echelons as a benefit of the position. That does not make it either ethical or practical.

And you assume that all trailing spouses have something to offer the university. Even in your scenario, there will be trailing spouses who cannot do much of anything for the school. The OP turned down a post-doc; post-docs are research positions. The spouse is at a SLAC. Those are teaching institutions. Does the OP have the kind of teaching experience that would be of use to a SLAC?

You don't seem to want to look at the ramifications for anyone other than trailing spouses.  Your "solutions" are all based on "can probably," "should be able to," etc. Do you have any statistical and financial data to back up your claims?

How many adjuncts would lose even that meagre income if such positions were converted to permanent part-time to accomodate a trailing spouse?

Would full-time t-t lines be converted to permanent part-time non-t-t positions in order to accomodate trailing spouses?

If part-time tt positions were created, would they be available to any qualified individual, or only trailing spouses?

What about TAs? Would those positions be eliminated in order to accomodate a trailing spouse?

How many trailing spouses would a department be required to accomodate? This could potentially double the size of every department.

Would this benefit be available to those who are not married, including, but not limited to, gay and lesbian couples? If they split up, would the trailing partner lose the position?

If the t-t partner fails to earn tenure, what then?

"Trailing spouses" should be treated like any other candidate. They should be allowed to apply and compete for positions for which they are qualified, without  regard to their spouse's position.

[Tenured Feminist]

Ignoring the problem and treating trailing partners exactly the same as everyone else will not make it go away.  In my experience and the experience of others "treating the same" often ends up meaning "holding the trailing spouse to a higher standard and only hiring him/her if she/he is 50% better than the second place candidate."

I am not trying to pretend that these are easy or costless issues.  "Another anon" simultaneously accuses me of treating trailing partners too well and too badly.  Of course the solution depends upon the person.  If partner A is tops in the field and fits an existing position in a department, of course that department should hire partner A for a tenure-stream job.  And of course if partner B is a lousy teacher who never publishes, a department should not pony up a tenure-stream position for partner B.  The no-brainers are not what we should be fighting about -- though at my institution we do.

Is it good for the institution to have the bulk of teaching rest on the shoulders of an underclass of poorly paid, unrespected, unsupported adjuncts?  Um, no.  Is it in anyone's interest to set two of the least powerful classes of academic laborers (adjunct faculty generally and partners generally, though of course there is significant correspondence) at each other's throats to scrabble together the last crumbs of the university's budget? Um, no.

I don't think there are easy answers.  And I think that the "easy answer" of "ignore the fact that a trailing partner is a trailing partner" is an easy answer.

So, another anon, what would you do if tenured professor X, director of a research institute, gets recruited by university Y because home institution has failed to hire her partner for anything but random adjunct classes for 20 years?  Throw up your hands and say, "oh well, guess we'll just have to run a search next year to replace her!  Too bad it will cost 50% more than her current salary to attract a comparable candidate!"?

[Another anon]

"In my experience and the experience of others "treating the same" often ends up meaning "holding the trailing spouse to a higher standard and only hiring him/her if she/he is 50% better than the second place candidate."

Are you suggesting that I meant that? If not, please address the issues I raised. I'm disappointed at your use of such an obvious red herring.

I did not "accuse" you of anything. I asked you to clarify your position, which you have not done. If anyone is suggesting that there are easy answer, it is you and the OP, by consistently refusing to address the questions posed to you. The real cost in your scenario would be born by those who are already at the lower end, a reality you do not want to accept, so you evade it.

"So, another anon, what would you do if tenured professor X, director of a research institute, gets recruited by university Y because home institution has failed to hire her partner for anything but random adjunct classes for 20 years? Throw up your hands and say, "oh well, guess we'll just have to run a search next year to replace her! Too bad it will cost 50% more than her current salary to attract a comparable candidate!"?"

I need to know more about the partner -- education, experience, background. I need to know exactly what was offered to the trailing partner by the recruiting institution. I'd wonder if Professor X were really the spectacular director you imply, if the home institution were willing to let her go so easily.

I'd wonder why the trailing partner had not been offered a permanent position (t-t or not) in 20 years. I'd wonder why the trailing partner had accepted that treatment for 20 years, rather than looking for alternatives, including leaving academia.

Are you suggesting that the answer is, "Well, let's just saddle some other department with a second-rate, unqualified, unproductive faculty member, for the good of our department?"

Of course, that isn't what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is assistant professor new on the t-t who has yet to prove his/her quality and value to the institution with a spouse with a similar profile.

Leah, how many trailing spouses would accept an administrative assistant or clerical position? Those are always available on any campus. And name a profession where entry-level hires fresh out of school or training call the shots.

[single and feeling ripped off]

One of the biggest "perks" of higher ed is the free tuition for your spouse or child.  I've never married and don't have children, so I already miss out on the biggest benefit available to me (and I'm in the humanities, so it really is a big benefit at the low salaries we're paid).  Now people think that qualified single people should be put out of work because someone else's husband or wife would like a job at the same institution??  Sounds like discrimination in hiring to me, and I don't like it.

[Tenured Feminist]

We discriminate (differentiate) in hiring all the time.  We have to, otherwise we could never choose.  The question is what kind of discrimination is legitimate and what illegitimate.  I've seen lots of people willing to push friends from graduate school in searches.  I've seen searches defined around the wishes of powerful faculty members who couldn't care less about the programmatic needs of the department.  The academic job market is not and has never been a pure meritocracy.

I don't think that anyone out there is supporting the red herring position that unqualified individuals should be given tenure-track positions to retain their partners.  Let's try to deal with the hard -- and realistic situations -- here.  This is where you have partners who have academic credentials pretty darn similar to their partners whom your institution has chosen to hire.  They may not be doing work in a field in which your university is searching, but they generally have Ph.D.s from credible institutions, if we assume that many trailing partners are acquired in graduate school.

What do you do with a person who has a Ph.D. and a CV that looks pretty similar to, though perhaps not quite as sparkling as, someone who just got a tenure-stream position in a competitive national search?  It seems that the people accusing me of taking the easy way out have two answers: that person hangs around and waits for the ideal position to come up, applies as an arms' length candidate, and, if s/he is better than every other applicant, s/he gets a tenure-stream position.  Otherwise, s/he can just join the list of ill-treated adjunct faculty at the bottom.  So what's your answer?

I think that this dualism points to the bigger problem in the academy of the poor treatment of contingent faculty generally (reread my first post).  Trailing partners may be the squeakiest wheels and the first to get accommodated because of their association with individuals who actually may have some bargaining power.  It is in the university's interest to try to grapple with these issues if it wants to hire and retain faculty in the long term.  But a better solution is to try to figure out what to do about the big structural problem.  And that's difficult in a climate of limited resources for higher education, but we need to think creatively about how to do it.  And we need to deal seriously with the non-monetary status issues, because they do matter.  

In several retention cases I know intimately at my current institution, the faculty members are leaving or have left because they got significantly better and more permanent jobs for their partners elsewhere.  At my institution, having the capacity to hire someone for a long-term contract with regular reviews and pay raises would be HUGE, as there really is no ground between contingent adjunct faculty and tenure-stream faculty.  Not all of these partners over the years have ended up in tenure-stream positions.  But they have all, or will all, end up in much better jobs than they've had here.  I don't have complete faith in the rationality of markets generally, but in the face of a lot of evidence, I think I can conclude that it is not operating rationally here and at many similarly situated institutions.

[Tenured Feminist]

Oh, and there's a simple explanation for why Ph.D.s don't solve their trailing partner problems easily by shoving them off into clerical and administrative assistant work.  Many of them are neither qualified nor adequately trained to do that kind of work.  One of the great canards of the American labor market is that anyone can run an office and manage phones, so we don't need to pay such people well or respect them.

[ProfF]

HEre's a twist on the tale.  One of my colleagues commented that in his university,  rather than being ignored,   the tenure-track Significant Other of a departmental bigshot was promoted well ahead of schedule to keep Bigshot happy and in place.  The rest of the department, however,  seethes with resentment and feels precocious promotion was not justified . Takehome message:  there is no easy solution in a profession where there may be only one suitable employer in town (or region).

[Elaine Godfrey]

Pardon my aside, but this is one reason why we don't use our names here.

Signed,
Not Elaine Godfrey

[Yet another anon]

I wonder if workers in other fields feel as entitled as academics seem to feel. What is it about getting a PhD that makes so many people feel the world then owes them something? And why would anyone ever feel entitled to a job at an institution merely because their spouse got one?

Too many graduate students (perhaps especially in the humanites where they learn their economics from Karl Marx) don't seem to understand the simple concept of supply and demand. There are more qualified people for t-t jobs than there are t-t jobs. Thus, if you want to change the system, the best solution would be for you to drop out of that job market, and try to use your skills where they would benefit other people. Hanging on to finish a PhD in an overcrowded market and then feeling entitled to a job is just selfish. While there may be many flaws with free markets, they certainly don't reward selfishness as much as some seem to think. To get a job, you have to do things that benefit other people. Your having certain skills means nothing if no one needs those skills.

If you want to change the system, go out and do something useful for other people, and don't just expect other people to do things for you.

[Really Elaine]

To the Elaine imposter, it must be asking too much to suppose that those in academia are capable of behaving according to the honor system, isn't it?  Or are people here just pretending to be honest in order to attain positions of prestige and honor?  Thanks to Leah for her honesty and fearlessness.  :-)  Please note that there is also a group moderator who can remove imposters’ posts.  By the viciousness displayed in many of these posts and the questionable behaviors, I now see why so many other fields need ethical committees to regulate them!

Anyway, thanks to "Trailing spouse by choice" for the list of references.  I'll be looking into them.

To everyone else, I don't think that all young faculty and grad students in their 20's and 30's are spoiled prima donnas that expect life on a silver platter. Yes, some may be, but it's certainly not the norm.  Grad school tends to beat it out of most...   I also know several full professors with the same attitude, and the departments continue to cater to their every whim.

Has anyone here ever stopped to think about the message that the resulting faculty assignments sends to "trailing spouses" (who are predominantly female), and the message sent to their children and the sensitive young students who look to their faculty as role models?  The undergraduate student body at many universities is now over 50% female, yet the students (male and female) see a faculty that is often 5-20% female (and a highest-ranking faculty percentage closer to zero).  This must contribute to a bias in all students' minds, and possibly a feeling of "I don't belong here" in female students.  Since this problem is across the country and across almost all disciplines, it seems obvious that there is something wrong with the current academic system.  If you think there is nothing wrong with a system that continues to be dominated by white males LONG after the feminist and civil rights movements, I wouldn't be surprised if you also think that men are smarter than women!  (and if you think that, how on earth did you get into academia?!?)

All of us could benefit from the introduction of new ideas and the suggestion that universities develop as diverse of a faculty as possible, but only if we keep an open mind.  These ideas should be welcome at ALL liberal arts institutions and universities (and across all disciplines). Perhaps residual faculty have become too calloused from their extended exposure to prejudice, discord, and bias.  New ideas could bring some fresh air into stale boardrooms, and I welcome suggestions of change for the better.  

Everyone, especially the students, at a university suffers when the faculty is not diverse.   To attain more high-achieving female faculty members, the two-body problem needs to be better addressed.