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[K-Dub]

Skirt wrote: "I'm not sure babyface knows what he's talking about in terms of power within academia. From where I'm standing, assistant professors have zero power."

I have to disagree a bit with your analysis about power in a college or university.  In general, I agree that assistant professors are on the low end of the power structure.  The entire phenomenon of spousal hires, however, highlights one particular instance where an assistant professor (at least a "rock star" academic) has some power.  Institutions would not even consider hirig a spouse if they did not think the candidate was worth it.  The power lies in how strongly the institution wants that candidate on their campus or in their department.

K-Dub

[anon]

The fact that she can appreciate the humor in her friend's questions about the town's one grocery store bodes well for her recovery, I think.
It is a tricky issue. Our dept has had good and bad experiences with spousal hires; I think initially offering year-to-year contracts with the option not to renew is a good solution.

[anon]

i've heard of some spousal hires that were tenured positions. however, all of these have been for senior level administators' spouses and all of them (at least the ones i've heard of) have gone to a spouse who HAD TENURE ALREADY somewhere else. in the case of assistant professors, i've never heard of the spouse of an assistant professor being offered a tt job as a spousal hire. it is virtually always as a non-tt teaching faculty. in these cases, "if" the person is so grossly underqualified, i'm sure the department would have no problem letting that person go if the couple split.

[anon]

I've also worked in a department in which we had two ex-grad students
wives of the same senior faculty member along with his current (former
grad student) wife.  Very ugly.

I'm with you in thinking spousals should be banned.



> Spousal hires...try working in a department where one of the
> already married senior  faculty  begins a relationship with his
> grad student and then decides to leave his wife to marry this
> student.  Once the student completes her MA, the senior faculty
> member demands a full-time lectureship for her.  The department
> goes through the motions of doing a search and conducting
> interviews where several high quality folks tried out for the
> position.  The position was then offered to this
> student-turned-spouse even though the remaining faculty all
> knew it was a mistake in that she was not of the quality of
> several of the candidates.  
>
> I am not sure if you call this nepotism, but it certainly is
> wrong.

[engprof]

babyface wrote:

"By participating in "spousal hiring" of unqualified people, we send the message to students that academia is NOT a meritocracy and that it IS all about who you know."

do you mean that academia is, indeed, a meritocracy? and that "who you know" is immaterial?

au contraire. it may be the least meritocratic field out there.

[ASCM]

In my earlier post, I said that the excellent spousal hires were people that we would have hired anyway. By that I mean that if they had come to use with their CV (having nothing to do with their spouse) we would have made a position for them based on their work alone. This is only a small fraction of our spousal hires, but there are several.

I know you aren't all slackers. But lots are. I have worked at many schools and I can write with confidence that lots of spousal hires don't measure up. Most of them would never have bene hired if not for the spouse. This creates resentment in people that had to get jobs on their own, or people who lost jobs to somebody's wife/husband. The job security for you, as a spoual hire, is very different than someone who has the same position but got it on their own. We also have problems when people feel the $ we spend on a created spousal position would be better spent elsewhere.

This resentment further creates a problem for the genuinely wonderful spousal hires we were lucky to get because there is a perception that spousal hires are lesser. There are several outstanding spousal hires who never seem to get out from under that "spousal hire" label.

My advice to anyone is that if you don't want to be viewed as having gotten your job through special favors - then don't get your job through special favors. If you get a job based on your school really wanting your wife/husband, then you can't be surprised when people view you in that way.

[A spousal hire]

"By that I mean that if they had come to use with their CV (having nothing to do with their spouse) we would have made a position for them based on their work alone."

Really? How often has this been done? That is, how many excellent candidates have come to you with a CV for a non-advertised, non-existing job and you've "made" them a position? A friend of mine is also a "spousal hire." He had four publications, including a sole-authored publication in the number one journal in his field. He received tt jobs from an ivy and two flag-ship campuses. His wife was also offered more than one tt job. Both were freshly minted PhDs. He sent out his CV (as she did) to several smaller schools in the areas where both had applied for open tt jobs. Many department chairs wrote them back with the same line, "IF we had an open position, we would LOVE to have you join us, however..." You are making it sound like you simply "make" positions available for qualified candidates if they simply send in a CV. This is not how most academic job searches are done, nor how academic jobs are secured. True, "spousal hires," do have a stigma. And you seem to indicate that it is somehow the faulty of "qualified" spousal hires that they have this stigma. I disagree. Mucy like other stigmatized people, the problem is not with the individuals who receive the stigma but with the people who erroneously make judgements on others.

I am also fully aware that there have been many instances of unqualified people being hired through spousal hires. More often than not, this has been the case with spouses of senior faculty members. I highly doubt that any school would make a "spousal hire" for an assistant professor unless the spouse is fully qualified.

[ASCM]

>Really? How often has this been done? That is, how many excellent >candidates have come to you with a CV for a non-advertised, non->existing job and you've "made" them a position?

This is not uncommon for non tenure-track jobs. Of course we can make a position happen for a non-spousal hire just exactly in the same way we make positions happen for spousal hires. Only in the non-spousal case, we're doing it solely for the individual, not them as part of a package. We can't make an opening for tenure-track, except in very rare cases for a senior already-tenured person. Our spousal hires are all non-tenure track anyway.

>And you seem to indicate that it is somehow the faulty of "qualified" >spousal hires that they have this stigma. I disagree.

Maybe I was unclear. That's now what I meant. I don't think the stigma is the fault of the good spousal hires. The resentment that many people feel towards spousal hires in general falls unfairly on all of them, including those that are excellent - the ones that we are lucky to have. I feel bad for these people because they often don't seem to get out from under that "spousal hire" stigma label. And the stigma isn't completely random. If someone gets a job based on their spouse's qualifications, of course it doesn't look good. I don't think this means that all spousal hires are bad (of course not) but I don't understand why any spousal hire is shocked that they aren't treated as seriously as other employees that had to get their jobs on their own. I don't immediately make any assumptions about someone because they are a spousal hire. Many are awful, but as I noted earlier, some are really great (but again - I don't know why these great people had to go through the spousal hire process).

>I highly doubt that any school would make a "spousal hire" for an >assistant professor unless the spouse is fully qualified.

Well, it depends on what you mean by fully qualified. I don't mean that we'd hire someone with no qualifications whatsoever. But we do hire people that we otherwise wouldn't. That is what spousal hiring is all about.

[A spousal hire]

"This is not uncommon for non tenure-track jobs."

I beg to differ. And the question I asked was, how many times has your department actually hired someone off the street who applied for a non-advertised, non-existing job by "making" a job for someone simply because they showed up with an impressive CV? I would guess, none. I certainly have not heard of anyone being offered a job at any place simply because they sent in a CV when no job existed, tt or not.

You make it sound as if this is a "common" practice and any highly qualified candidate can get a job "somewhere" if they just send out their CV, even when no job exists. (Excuse me if I'm misreading your post, but it seems to me that you are implying that it would be "common" for a department to "make" a non tt job open whenever a highly qualified candidate sends in his/her CV.) This is very insulting to thousands of very highly qualified phds who do not find a job in their first, second, or even third year on the market. I'm sure that with jobs getting upwards of 300 applications, many are at least "highly qualified." Yet, I've never heard of a single department making a tt hire based on the one open line they advertised and offering non tt lines to their second, third, or fourth choices. Now, if they were willing to hire the second and perhaps third choice into a tt line if the first choice did not accept, why would they not offer a non tt line if it is so "common" for departments to "make" a job where non exists?

Also, you say that these "highly qualified" spousal hires don't manage to shake the stigma. I don't believe that it is their responsibility to shake the stigma at all. I think it is the responsibility of those holding such views to modify them in light of evidence.

[babyface]

Dear Eng Prof,

You say that academia is far from being a meritocracy with an air of wit and experience, as if you are clueing in a naiive babyface.

No offense, but I am not blind.  I realize that academia is far from being a meritocracy, and I think that this is wrong.

I firmly believe that students should be able to feel confident that when they are striving for a high grade point average, conducting research that will be graded, or competing for an  academic award, they are being judged fairly, based on merit alone.

Let's not forget that we are student's role models.  If we participate in nepotism or allow our colleagues to advance based on criteria other than their own merit, our students will eventually adopt the same behavior.

With all due respect, Eng Prof, your blase attitude about the whole thing disgusts me.  

Babyface

[hist prof]

(To eng prof) "You say that academia is far from being a meritocracy with  
                      an air of wit and experience, as if you are clueing in a naiive
                      babyface."


Let's see. You talk about yourself in the third person


To anon "Well, you may think you are young, but in my mind 30 is OLD.
               ...Considering the fact that I am younger than you and I have      
               already made it to Assistant Professor at a well-known program,
               thanks to my own blood, sweat and tears, you can kiss my @$$."

                 
You have an inflated sense of self-entitlement.  

You sound like a delightful colleague.  I'm sorry your salary is, as you say, "laughable."    

babyface wrote:

>
> Dear Eng Prof,
>
> You say that academia is far from being a meritocracy with an
> air of wit and experience, as if you are clueing in a naiive
> babyface.
>
> No offense, but I am not blind.  I realize that academia is
> far from being a meritocracy, and I think that this is wrong.
>
> I firmly believe that students should be able to feel
> confident that when they are striving for a high grade point
> average, conducting research that will be graded, or competing
> for an  academic award, they are being judged fairly, based on
> merit alone.
>
> Let's not forget that we are student's role models.  If we
> participate in nepotism or allow our colleagues to advance
> based on criteria other than their own merit, our students will
> eventually adopt the same behavior.
>
> With all due respect, Eng Prof, your blase attitude about the
> whole thing disgusts me.  
>
> Babyface

[ACSM]

>>"This is not uncommon for non tenure-track jobs."
>I beg to differ. And the question I asked was, how many times has your >department actually hired someone off the street who applied for a non->advertised, non-existing job by "making" a job for someone simply >because they showed up with an impressive CV? I would guess, none.

You are simply wrong. We have done this dozens of times. I'm at a Big Ivy. Maybe the situation differs elsewhere. This is for non-tenure track positions - research or teaching.

>Yet, I've never heard of a single department making a tt hire based on >the one open line they advertised and offering non tt lines to their >second, third, or fourth choices.

This isn't the same issue. We wouldn't hire multiple peopel for the same topic. If we are hiring for someone to fill a position in topic X, we don't want three people in topic X.

>Also, you say that these "highly qualified" spousal hires don't manage to >shake the stigma. I don't believe that it is their responsibility to shake >the stigma at all.

I agree that people should be judged on their own merit, not on generalizations about whole categories of people. I am also saying that spousal hires should not be surprised that the stigma is there.

[to hist prof]

Dear Hist Prof,

In case you don't remember, you once complimented me on being intelligent and enjoyable to speak with.  Sorry to have dissapointed you.

I wasn't speaking of myself in the third person.  I happened to have been using the word babyface as a general term.  The fact that it is also my  handle is purely coincidental.

My salary is laughable compared to others, but it is not laughable considering that I finished all of my degrees by age 25, adjunct taught for two semesters, and did such an excellent job adjuncting that a well known program wanted to hire me f-t.  I was hired not because I knew somebody but because of my short but stellar track record.  The fact that I will be able to use this job in order to get a better one is also not laughable.

Also, do you really need to protect anon?  He can dish it out, so he can probably take it.  In fact, I appreciate anon's directness and honesty as I am sure he appreciates mine.

My comments toward anon were intended to be lighthearted and funny.

My colleagues actually like me.

I used to like you, but if you can't even have a sense of humor... and if you randomly decide that my colleagues don't like me when actually they think I am fantastic and often say so... then you may just well be making yourself another enemy.

: )

[babyface]

Um, in case people forgot, we were supposed to be discussing spousal hires and/or nepotism...

I have to admit that I've given in to petty bantering as have hist prof and anon, but can we please get back on topic... petty bantering is so overrated.

ASCM, I really agree with all of the comments you have posted.  Despite those spousal hires who are truly excellent, I don't think spousal hires should be a normal part of the hiring process, for all the reasons people have been mentioning.

[ks]

I don't think spousal hires are nepotism.  I don't think one is going to get a winner or a loser for sure in any of these situations.  The problem is more fundamental than this.  The problem is that in a small department it can create a voting block.  It also creates a situation where home-issues can leak over into the work place.  For example, how are faculty meetings when two people are divorcing?  I have no desire to go through a divorce by proxy by simply doing my job and showing up for a meeting.  I don't want the expectation of helping to meet thier needs in child rearing (i.e., both take leave).  I understand the plight of two career couples but any team hires should be in different departments.

I just don't want to be bothered with people's marriages in my place of work.