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[mccfan]

I was a bit horrified by today's first person column.  The spouse has received two great tenure track offers, and b/c there was nothing good there for the partner, both offers were turned down.  Eek!  It is of course their decision to make, but I can't help but feel that if I were the job offer recipient that I would want to kill (or perhaps just divorce) the spouse who won't trail.

It would be different if the trailer had a fabulous job and the spouse were asking the trailer to leave it.  But I couldn't help but wonder what these folks are going to do for an income this year, and if turning down great offers in back to back years won't get the offer recipient a bad reputation, the kind that causes search committees to say "we won't make that person an offer b/c that person never accepts even the perfect one."

[bigdaddyprof]

Part of me was like, what more do they want?!?!?!?!?! I felt that she lacked the courage to do the work necessary to take a small opportunity and transform it into what she wanted by taking control and putting herself out there. I also felt that she has an overdeveloped sense of entitlement; "well, if I cant have the BEST faciltities and the BEST colleagues and the BEST position then too bad," kind of thing. Not suprising coming from an ivy-leager though. These schools bent over backwards to help her out and she just didnt see herself willing to settle for something less than ideal and try to wring advancement out of it. And the geology market just ain't that good, folks. The top tier isnt so accommodating sometimes. However, it's their choice to not compromise with the market. Whatever.

[bio_prof_]

More jobs for the rest of us.

[case_insensitive]

More jobs for the rest of us.

I like the way you think, bio_prof!

[johnr]

I'm so glad that I wasn't the only one rolling my eyes after reading that column.  I would be especially upset if it was my department making the offer to them.  I know that a lot of searches don't work out, but what a tremendous waste of time and money.  I hope to heck this couple remains anonymous because I wouldn't touch either one of them with a ten foot pole at this point. 

This reminds me of the time we made an offer to a great candidate, but she didn't accept because we couldn't offer a job to her husband.  Her husband was a deep sea diver.  Not a lot of use for one of those around our campus!

[oldfullprof]

What was especially annoying was the idea of an assistant prof trying to do a difficult dual hire.  I can see it with someone way established.

When my wife's dean heard that we might be offered a dual hire somewhere (only because my wife was then tenured and well published and could head a short-supply discipline department), she did offer me a soft money job.  My wife stayed anyway.  The new campus would have been a couple of steps down.  I passed also to take a t-t job 250 miles away, so I'm driving home on weekends.

[random]

I'm an assistant professor who got a spousal hire.  While it was a traumatic process for us because of the kind of attitudes expressed here, the department has since realized that they are the better for it because they get two productive scholars who are good department citizens, and who aren't always flying off somewhere to see their spouse because they are in a commuter marriage.  And I've turned down better jobs for me when they could not accommodate my spouse.  Sometimes dual career hires are difficult because of other academics' envy--I've seen cases where people had a line they could use for a spousal and they refuse to because they don't want to accommodate someone who isn't superstar, who in their eyes would be the only one who "deserves" a spousal, which comes to be seen as a perk--and so people without an academic spouse feel that they don't have access to this source of prestige (this point was explained to me by one chair when telling me why they can't accommodate my spouse--it was so surprising to me I just laughed).

[jverner]

"In the end, the university could offer me little more than an office and an affiliation. It also offered a year's salary and assurances that it would work hard to keep helping me."

Wow!  An office, an institutional affiliation, and a salary with no responsibilities.  Sounds to me like a dream come true.  I would look upon this as an opportunity to show what I could do and use the time to carve out a niche for myself.

[oldfullprof]

Probably a more neutral way to express this is that it's simply a function of supply and demand.  In short supply fields, or to get a notable scholar, the department may need to do a dual hire.  In a field well supplied with new professors, they don't really.  Often, the spouse will be going to a different department at the new college.  Getting them on board there may require the first spouse's department to expend political capital, which may be in short supply. 

At a public college, such as the ones at which I've found myself, injecting a spouse into another department's search would be difficult, since the procedures for searches are well established and regulated.  Unless the spouse otherwise makes it through the search, that is.

As some of us have pointed out, the forcing of a spousal hire within a department may use up political capital as well, since some department members may think that it adds an additional constraint to the process of getting the best candidate for the additional position, if there is one.

Many departments do make adjunctive work available for a spouse, as in the article-- if I read that part correctly. 

[kathleen47]

It is an unfortunate outcome, but it happens all the time. Given the experiences of many colleagues this is becoming a larger and larger problem. As more academic are attached to academics, institutions are losing more candidates in the final round. Candidates rarely have incentive to mention the SO because it only makes them a "difficult hire".

So, those without SO are always more mobile. Always. If an institution snags both SO the likelihood of departure is much lower.

[case_insensitive]

So, those without SO are always more mobile.

The down side to this is some schools don't want to hire you because they think you might leave eventually and they want to hire folks that stay put.

[kathleen47]

So, those without SO are always more mobile.

The down side to this is some schools don't want to hire you because they think you might leave eventually and they want to hire folks that stay put.

I agree. Most schools would like you to stay put. One way to increase the likelihood of staying put is to attempt to solve SO work issues. If it is not solved, then either 1) the candidate will turn the offer down, thus resulting in a hire who is more mobile now and in the future, or 2) the candidate will take the job and probably look again in the near future.

What is most frustrating from a SLAC point of view is that we would like a person to be involved on campus, but we are increasing hiring individuals whose SO work and live outside the area. The result: less student faculty interaction outside class.

[jonesey]

I'm still floored that people expect the institution that hires them to give their SO a job as well.  What other career field, anywhere, offers someone's SO a job as well?  Personally, it just seems silly to me.  If I'm hiring someone, why should I have to offer hu's SO a job, too?  Why is it any different than if, say, hu's SO is an attorney, or a CPA, or a high school teacher?  Those occupations don't automatically get to transfer, why would a professor be any different, especially since it seems there are literally hundreds of PhDs for one TT job just about anywhere in this country (or so I keep hearing on these fora). 

It's an administrator's market, not a profs.  It seems to me profs might have to take what they can get and just be happy with an income.

[case_insensitive]

It's an administrator's market, not a profs.  It seems to me profs might have to take what they can get and just be happy with an income.

This is not true in all disciplines.

[zharkov]

I'm still floored that people expect the institution that hires them to give their SO a job as well.  What other career field, anywhere, offers someone's SO a job as well? .....

I have seen it in private industry and in health care/hospitals.  In industry, they made up a job for the SO in PR, which was abolished a few years later when the original hire left (with SO).   In health care, well-respected doc comes to the hospital is the SO gets a job.

I think spousal hire is not uncommon outside of academia, but is just more visible within academia.