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[first time trailer]

How do spousal hires work? Is there usually a campus visit or telephone interview just to make sure the person is not a total dud, or is the process as rigorous as any other position being hired for?

Are departments ever reluctant to take in a spousal hire? Can a department veto the dean's desire to create a spousal hire (a request made by the dean to make sure the top candidate in this other field takes the job)?

I'm asking because my spouse is in the beginning stages of negotiating an offer and I need to know what  I might be going through....

Please share with me any experiences.... Thanks!

[Tim]

This has been brought up before.

http://chronicle.com/forums/careers/read.php?f=2&i=47604&t=47604&v=f

As for Dean's creating spousal positions, you should make sure that the extra position doesn't affect future hires in your department. The dean should meet you half way. Find out the whole story, no need to make an enemy of the dean. You might get lucky with an extra position, or even a wonderful collegue. I have never heard of someone parachuted in without some input from the department to which they will belong.

Hey if they are awful they'll never make tenure.

[Search Committee Member]

A spousal hire to a tenure-track position (a position that has not been advertised) is extremely rare, and generally depends on special circumstances. A hire to a non-tenure-track position, often for a limited number of years, can generally be offered by a large department. We do this often -- but we require c.v., letters of ref, and at the very least a conversation with the person; and then what we offer is basic teaching of the same sort our own grad students are doing.

I hope you will read the many other threads on this issue, since you sound as if you believe a spousal hire is frequent and nearly automatic. It definitely is not -- unless your spouse is a true super-star in a field where faculty are very hard to find. It is probably most common with colleges in "undesirable" locations, where a job that will keep the spouse moderately happy may eventually be found and therefore the search (for the job the principal seeker has been offered) will not have to be repeated in a year or two when s/he moves on to greener pastures.

[Search Committee Member]

Re-reading your original post, I'd add one more piece of information. We have occasionally been asked to "take in" the spouse of someone hired for a senior administrative position -- therefore doing something that will earn us points with the provost/president's office, and, we're told, at "no cost" to our future allowance of lines for tenure track hires. These are generally already reasonably senior people -- but we insist on a full tenure process before we will tenure such a person in our department, and in at least one recent case we found the person (who had come from a full-professor position at a decent liberal arts college but had no significant publications) was NOT worthy of tenure in our department, and refused to allow the appointment. We didn't suffer any bad consequences from the administration. But of course the answer to that question depends on the nature of the university (how much flexibility is there in departments, how many "extra" courses to teach, how much control does the dean have as opposed to department governance on the one hand or provost approval on the other) and on the level of the position your spouse is being offered as well as the one that might be created for you.

[Seeker]

As others have indicated, spousal hiring is a complex process, and how it is handled varies by department, institution, and location. Universities in more rural areas or where there are few other schools in the area are generally more amenable to spousal hiring than schools in areas with lots of other educational institutions. Especially at the beginning assistant professor level, the creation of a TT position for a spouse is exceptionally rare. You are more likely to receive some kind of an offer as a visiting assistant professor or lecturer, which, ideally, will entitle you to teach a specified number of courses, but, as a rule, won't make you eligible for internal funding competitions or other awards. Ideally, you'll be offered a multi-year deal so you have time to look around and find something permanent. Most universities will not fly out a  candidate for a full interview for a non-TT position, but you should have your CV and other materials ready to send out, and be prepared for a phone conversation with the relevant department chair or dean.  

Also, just as with a TT offer, make sure you have a WRITTEN contract. I have a good friend who chose a job with the assurance of a visiting position for her husband in another department. She did not have this written in to her contract, nor did her husband ever receive anything beyond a formal offer letter and the dean's verbal assurances. Needless to say, they moved halfway across the country, and two weeks before classes were to start, the university announced they didn't have funding for her husband's position and he was scrapped. Hopefully, this was the odd exception, but you should get in writing (1) how much you will teach; (2) which courses you will be expected to teach; (3) your salary and benefits; and (4) your rights to other benefits (i.e., library resources, faculty parking permits, office space, etc.).

[first time trailer]

I appreciate your comments. Any others?

[Tenured Feminist]

Search past threads.  There have been many, many, many discussions of this issue.

[scared]

hey this worries me:

Seeker wrote:
.... nor did her husband ever receive anything beyond a formal offer letter and the dean's verbal assurances...

What else is needed after a formal offer letter? You sign it and you are done I had thought...

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