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[diana]

Can anyone give advice on negotiating a spousal/partner?  I know that comes up when the offer is made, but how does one go about it?  Do I just say, "Wow, I'd love to accept at "insert college name here", but I need to negotiate a position for my partner as well?"

The other issues are that my partner and I are both women, and in the same field (similar specializations, but not exactly).  We are both on the market but applying at different schools.  We are applying to jobs that are close to each other, but there is a real possibility one of us may get an offer and the other may not, so we want to be prepared for partner/spousal negotiations.

[%sig%]

[unsuccessful]

My partner and I have tried this several times, with no luck yet.  Here were our experiences:

1.  When I got my TT job, there was professed interest, but no appropriate department for him (we're straight, but at the institutions we've been applying to, same-sex couples are, incidentally, treated the same), as I knew in advance.

2.  When he got his TT job, there was professed interest, but no money in the budget.

3.  At another institution he got an offer at, they were *livid* that he only mentioned me when the offer was made (even though this is what we had always been advised to do).  They felt he should have told them during the interview.  They contacted the department for my field; they had no need for another person in my area (this is definitely the case!); they pressured him to make up his mind very quickly; he turned them down.

4.  We're therefore now in an LDR.  He's up for tenure in two years and his dean has been making noises about things changing re spousal hiring once you're tenured.  We're not putting much stock in this, though (why would they put the extra effort to retain you then?), and continue to be on the market.  

Sorry not to be able to offer tips for success!  Good luck!

[Search Committee Member]

At my R-1, when the department chair calls to make the offer, there will also be some general conversation about the chair's need to go to the dean for details of salary, start-up, etc., and the chair will ask something like "in rough terms, what will it take to bring you here?" To say at that point that you "need" a position for your partner -- in the same department -- would kill the deal right then; the dean will not provide a second, unadvertised, tenure-track position in the same department, even if we happen to need that slightly different area. To say "it's important to me to find a suitable position for my partner -- can you provide any help?" lets the chair get details and see what might be possible. We can always supply a three-year non t-t visiting spot (teaching basic courses), which gives a partner time to search in commuting range (and we're in a big city, which makes that much more possible); we also, for that matter, have in the department spouses in a dozen near-by schools, and sometimes can provide an edge in placement *in a subsequent year*. But though some universities can manage partner lines -- especially schools in relatively remote locations, where providing two jobs is about the only way to ensure that faculty who publish and prove valuable will stick around -- others can not. In any case, it's better to "explore" the issue with the department chair than to make the demand as you phrase it.

[former commuter]

My partner and I have just resolved our LDR after eleven years, and I feel we have learned a lot along the way about the process, both from our own experiences and from watching others in our departments try and mostly fail to work this out.  The biggest thing to understand is that at the junior level, it's extremely unlikely for another position to be found for a partner.  At all of the places we have worked, there were explicit rules about spousal hires, which were simply that the person asking for one *had* to be tenured to be considered.  Almost no dean is going to be willing to make another tt line for a probationary person.  It was very important to us not to compromise and settle for less than two tenured or tt jobs, so we waited all those years until we were both in positions to be desirable as senior candidates.  I have had one student who managed a tt line for his spouse, but it was at a school that a) made an explicit practice of hiring couples and b) needed someone in her field at that point in time. She also had several tt offers from very good places and was clearly a hot candidate; they didn't come up with anything until she had two or three offers in hand, at which point they decided that she was clearly someone they wanted to hire.  I would bring up the issue once the offer is made, and do so as SCM suggests, as a point of negotiation and not as a demand.  It would help if your partner had offers too, and if you had another offer to convince school A that you were worth the extra effort.  If your partner has to choose between a part time, or non tt position, and a tt position elsewhere, I would strongly advise that she/he take the tt job and you commute for a few years.  Then once you have books done and are ready for the market again, go back out and get more substantial offers, which will make your department more likely to hire her/him.  It's a waiting game, for the most part, and to get the ultimate good result--tenured jobs at the same school--you have to make sacrifices.  But it can be done!  Good luck!!

[anon again]

I have posted about my headache before  so I will spare the details - however I would think it would be worse for a non-traditional couple.
We have found some schools that could open a position for a 2nd t-t spot for a minority hire - but not vice versa. We found one school that had been planning on another hire the following year, and politics in the department did not allow for that. I have a friend who turned down a t-t spot at a top 10 school to go to a MUCH smaller school because they could and would take them both, and i have a friend whose husband was adjunct for 3 years before other schools came a-courting when another t-t spot miraculously (sp?) appeared for him.

We are currently at a school where I have a t-t and my spouse is adjunct and he has an interview for this year's t-t spot, but he may not get the job. This is causing me to have ulcers.   I have colleagues in the next college where the dean said he would help the spouse find a job and didn't.

Point is - don't make it a deal breaker, but think about what would be the best situation for the two of you and recognize that it might not happen right away. There are some places that will be very understanding of a non-traditional couples - but some that couldn't make hiring arrangements because of it.  I wouldn't apply to any Catholic schools, for instance.

Since you are both in similar fields, it may actually be better to find something nearby for one of you - since then you will not be competing against each other.  However - no school likes to be the smaller one the dean at the bigger school calls when they are trying to hire someone.

[similar situation]

I am in a similar situation. Just had a dept vote to make me a tenured offer (I am tt elsewhere now). They have known about my spousal situation, and are willing to help - though there are no explicit procedures in place. Due to the university's situation, it would be unlikely (but not impossible) for sth to work out for my partner, and I don't want this to be a dealbreaker (it's a great place for me; he has a great tt offer far away). Do I ask them for help now, or wait until I have the formal offer in hand (which could take a couple more months)?

[b]

I recently  heard that departments sometimes split one position for couples. There are some financial concerns, and I don't about benefits, but at least you would be together both working in the same place.

[resources]

Here are a few resources with info about spousal hires. These are from a range of academic discipines. You can find many more by GOOGLING something like "national spousal hire policies":

http://www.chillyclimate.org/examples.asp
Info about lots of family-career issues. Specific examples of different dual career policies

http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/WomenMinorityHiring.htm
Poition paper about dual career issues in history

http://www.nagt.org/nagt/jge/columns/methodologies.html (LAST PAPER)
Gender and the Geoscience, JGE, v. 51, n. 4, September, 2003, p. 446-452

Make sure you search at each institution where you hire to find out what their spousal hiring policy might be. Many schools now have pools of money set aside for spousal hires. Don't necessarily hold out for two full-time positions. Get your foot in the door with one full-time and one half-time , and then work to get the half-time increased to full. Or both go in as 3/4-time. ETC.

Good luck!

[gandalf]

I've applied to colleges in some out of the way places.  Many of these locations would have very little in the way of career opportunities for my spouse.  Is there a possibility of a spousal hire not as a faculty member of a department but rather within administration or perhaps an on-campus facility like a museum?  Would this be harder or easier than the traditional two-body problem?

[Senior Scholar]

To answer gandalf's question, one of my PhD's has had jobs in smallish schools in two places where there was no other college within reasonable commute, and has a husband with a PhD in a field that is rapidly disappearing even from some major universities. Both of the schools immediately found an administrative / upper-level staff position for the husband. (Currently, said husband is just moving into a named post in central administration after several years working his way up.) Take this for what it is -- anecdotal evidence from ONE case -- but in this case it seemed to be much easier to find non-faculty positions than it has for other students and acquaintances looking for two faculty jobs. Because non-faculty posts, except at the highest levels, are not generally searched nationally? I don't know.

[been there, still there]

Hi Diana,

I think the big question you and your partner need to ask yourselves is whether you're willing to go into a situation where one of you is the trailing/captive/less desirable spouse.  Only the two of you can answer that, but I urge you to do some serious thinking about it.  In our case, we tried it where I trailed my spouse and where my spouse trailed me, and both cases left one of us bitter and resentful.  There was some serious ugliness, when the one of us that was non-tt tried to apply for an open line for which that person was clearly qualified, and was turned down - BOTH times.  (The second time was certainly interesting - it isn't every day that you get to understand exactly what your partner was going through the previous year.)

This year, we applied for two pairs of jobs.  Not because we're lazy, but because those were the only two places with two openings that seemed to match us.  I've got a visiting spot, he's got a tt spot nearby, and we figure it'll take two tt spots to get us to move again.  We told them up front (in our cover letters) that they'd have to hire us both to get either.  (This should -theoretically- not be a problem, since they have two tt lines open for which we're qualified.)  One of the double-job schools did phone interviews and then asked if we'd be willing to settle for one tt and one non-tt job.  We said no.  Based on the subsequent silence, I'd say we're out of the running on that one.  We're still hoping to hear from the other double-job school.  Otherwise, there's always next year, and then we might think about trying to do a job share.

I have one thought for you, based on what I've seen of the market in my field (sciences).  Diversifying your interests may help.  Had we been in two different subfields, we'd have had more jobs to choose from.  Because we're in almost the same subfield (like you), our chances of fortuitously finding a school with two openings matching our subfield is much lower.  We're trying to go in different directions right now with our teaching and research interests, in the hopes of growing into two different subfields and being more hireable as a result.

Good luck to everyone with the two-body problem!  It's a real bear.

[anon]

I get the impression that most of the spousal hire issues are dealing with two people who do roughly the same thing / same field. Is it easier or harder if the two are in completely different fields, such as science and humanities?

[anany]

In a recent search we had a couple in the same field apply for two positions in our department. They "demanded" that if one of them was interviewed, both of them had to be, and if one were offered a job, the other had to be too. This was all done in a cover letter. Needless to say, we got a good laugh out of it and they weren't called.

My impression of this is that if you talk to people, most can understand your situation and may work to open doors for both of you. But to make demands without any bargaining power is just comical.

[%sig%]

[L.DR too]

Former commuter mentioned "when you have books' done. On this forum, I have always made in a practice to never assume what helps tenure in my situation will help in another. For example, in my position, what helps get tenure is getting research grants, not books. Books, in fact, are not considered useful at all in my field

[anon]

Never  settle for a "split" position. Both people will still be expected to do as much work as a full postion for less pay. This also has bizarre tenure implications  - should you do the same amount of work if you had two bodies working questions?