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[smithfieldmuse]

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the following: how will either schools that have offered the spousal line support your research goals? If the teaching and service loads are brutal, then the 2 of you are stuck there. If they allow for a sustainable and productive research agenda, then you can move on from there.

It is very discouraging how schools use the spousal hire issue as leverage to reduce research support.  One school has offered us levels of start-up research support that are really insufficient for our needs, and minimal teaching reductions, which they justify because they gave us a spousal hire.  I think not being "stuck" anywhere is a really important consideration. 

No offense, but for folks who haven't been able to score spousal hires, or are in fields that wouldn't be able to provide any of these things, it's very hard to sympathize with you.   Your "worst case scenario" is one that a lot of us would kill for.

[canadia]

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the following: how will either schools that have offered the spousal line support your research goals? If the teaching and service loads are brutal, then the 2 of you are stuck there. If they allow for a sustainable and productive research agenda, then you can move on from there.

It is very discouraging how schools use the spousal hire issue as leverage to reduce research support.  One school has offered us levels of start-up research support that are really insufficient for our needs, and minimal teaching reductions, which they justify because they gave us a spousal hire.  I think not being "stuck" anywhere is a really important consideration.

I wasn't thinking about reducing research support, per se. "We're putting your spouse TT, so deal w/ reduced research support."

But more along the lines of teaching a 4/4 makes publishing much more difficult, for instance.

Do the institutions in question give sufficient support for research so that the two of you will not be stuck there.

[jacaranda_]

Having read further details about this situation, I think my opinion has shifted, and since this issue has not yet been put on the table explicitly, I guess I'll ask:

Could you deal with the emotional and financial prospect of being apart from your partner for a few years?  Maybe that is just an unthinkable option, but I have to say, I think my two happiest relationships were with partners who lived pretty far away (200–500 miles away).  When we were apart, I could focus on my work, we could talk and email daily -- and our visits together every few weeks were incredibly happy periods of respite away from that work.  Maybe I'm just a weirdo in having found that sort of situation quite workable.

But I'm hearing in your voice that you feel like giving up the opportunity at least to pursue these job possibilities is very distressing to you.  No offense to your SO, but it sounds like you are a bit more of a superstar, and you deserve to get your career off to the best possible start.  Your long-term mobility and status as a professor will be stronger if you are able to begin your career at a top-notch institution.  It is just much easier to move down than to move up if you end up switching departments mid-stream.

That does leave open the question of what to tell your SO's department who has made the dual offer (I'm assuming one place looks better than the other).  See if you can run out the clock on the offers (have they given you two weeks?) -- and by then, hopefully, you might know more about these other job prospects.

[chocolate_jazz]

I don't have a two-body problem, however, my own job search was placed on pause last year because of someone else's two-body problem.  In short: I was the second-choice candidate for a certain R1 job (which I'll call Pleasant University).  I found this out because I emailed the chair to withdraw my application, after receiving an offer from Dream University.  The chair at Pleasant asked me to wait to withdraw because hu was on pins & needles waiting to see whether hu's first-choice candidate would accept.  It turned out that once the other candidate received their offer, hu requested a spousal hire.  After Pleasant University went to the trouble to create a position for the spouse, the candidate was still stalling because spouse was at a better R1 (we'll call it Stellar State Uni) and the spouse was trying to negotiate a position for hu at Stellar State instead.  At this point, the chair of Pleasant U's department phoned me regularly, saying some things hu probably shouldn't have said about the other candidate.  Basically, the chair directly expressed regret about making an offer to someone whom hu described as calculating, inconsiderate, unprofessional, and a whole long list of pejoratives.  The other candidate kept on asking for an extension on the deadline, but eventually, time ran out, and I had to sign Dream Uni's contract.    The candidate did end up accepting the job at Pleasant University, but hu's spouse stayed at Stellar State.  The chair at Pleasant and another SC member whom I ran into at a conference both complained about the time and money the candidate's spouse had wasted in the process and how they almost lost the TT-line for the original position because the dean was getting so ticked off at the stalling tactics and the state was in the middle of a budget crisis.  They also said that the  person they hired doesn't seem serious about staying there and is probably just using the position as a stepping stone, which upsets them because they're trying to establish a new program, and that position is pivotal.  News  of what happened has quickly spread in my small and incestuous field, with hu coming out looking rather negative.  Oh, and for what it's worth, the couple with the two-body issue is in related fields, so both of them have earned the reputation of being difficult.   

[jackalope]

OP, I want to reinforce what Pry said. The apparent reason your hubby was able to score a spousal hire for you is that you are a bigger deal than he is and a department willing to hire him was wowed by you. This is unlikely to cut in the opposite direction--your top school is less likely to make a spousal hire of someone they would not ordinarily hire at all.

This is a strange business and no one can make any certain predictions, and if you are feeling lucky (or don't need tow incomes) you might roll the dice and go for broke.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[ideagirl]

No offense to your SO, but it sounds like you are a bit more of a superstar, and you deserve to get your career off to the best possible start.

Um... you mean, those who are NOT superstars DON'T deserve to get their careers off to the best possible start? Surely that's not what you meant...

Anyway, obviously everyone who's put in that much hard work already deserves that. But not everyone is able to achieve it, in part because not everyone even has the chance (this OP, for example, has not even gotten any offers from R1's yet, right?), and in part because there are other things in life to consider besides the name brand of the place you work. For example... would going with the name brand place 1000 miles from your spouse harm or even result in ending your marriage? Something to consider. Would it further delay having children, perhaps resulting in leaving it so late that you don't have children? Something to consider.

So I agree that that's the central question to ask the OP: whether she and her SO could handle it well if they lived apart. The other question I would ask is how much of a risk-taker she is by nature. The risk is not just the effect on the marriage, but the effect on other future plans: right now she and her SO have offers at one school; if her plan is to take the R1 job and live apart for a few years, is she okay with the risk that a few years from now when their careers are launched and they're trying to find a place that wants them both, they won't be able to find such a place? The fact such an offer was made now doesn't mean it will be offered any time they want it--it just so happens that this school was able to make such an offer this time.

In other words this is a "bird in the hand" question: she has the bird that so many people on these boards crave--an offer with a spousal hire. Even assuming she gets R1 offers herself, is she willing to give the spousal-hire offer up, and gamble that a few years down the line when their careers are more established and they want to live together again, they will be able to find another such "bird" of an offer in a place that they're both okay living?

And is taking that gamble worth it--i.e., is the likely effect on her career of taking the hypothetical R1 job that she may or may not be offered likely to be so strong that it's worth that risk and the risk that living apart may pose to their marriage? Is the effect likely to be so strong that she and her husband would be better off taking this approach rather than accepting this spousal-hire offer, seeing how they like the university, and then going on the market again in a few years--searching for the same spousal-hire offer that they'll be searching for anyway if she takes the R1 job--if they decide they don't want to stay there?

Not to complicate things, but it is a complicated situation...

[jacaranda_]

No offense to your SO, but it sounds like you are a bit more of a superstar, and you deserve to get your career off to the best possible start.

Um... you mean, those who are NOT superstars DON'T deserve to get their careers off to the best possible start? Surely that's not what you meant...

My point was that she shouldn't have to sacrifice her best professional opportunities (which could be beneficial for both of them in the long run) just because the hiring clocks turned out this way.  Sounds like her husband already has the best possible start at the moment: two schools that want him enough to offer her a job, too.

[ideagirl]

My point was that she shouldn't have to sacrifice her best professional opportunities (which could be beneficial for both of them in the long run) just because the hiring clocks turned out this way. 

Well, and we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but what's done is done. And I shouldn't have student loans to pay--higher education should be free--but I've got 'em.

I guess I just don't think it's helpful to say, "Gee, you shouldn't have to experience XYZ problem" to someone who IS experiencing XYZ problem and has little to NO ability to change it.

I mean, what kind of concrete advice can you offer someone if they tell you, "My husband has two job offers for both of us, but we need to accept or decline by X date, which is before I'll know if I get any offers"? What can you say other than, "Ok, well, try to run out the clock on those two offers, but if they won't extend the time or they won't extend it long enough, then I guess you'll just have to make a decision about those offers before you find out about these other offers you want"? What other possible advice is there, and how could it possibly help to say "you shouldn't be in that situation"? Number one, she's in it, and number two, welcome to the job market--you don't always get exactly what you want. So, deal.

[jacaranda_]

Ideagirl -- you are misunderstanding what I've said, and I honestly don't care.  This thread isn't about you.  If the OP wants to return to carry on the conversation, I suppose she will.  But threads that turn into head-butting contests between posters bore me, so I'm going to wish the OP the best of luck and sign off.

[johnr]

Ideagirl -- you are misunderstanding what I've said, and I honestly don't care.  This thread isn't about you.  If the OP wants to return to carry on the conversation, I suppose she will.  But threads that turn into head-butting contests between posters bore me, so I'm going to wish the OP the best of luck and sign off.

goodbye cruel thread

[jacaranda_]

goodbye cruel thread

Oh yeah!  Sorry, didn't mean to sound so melodramatic.

[msparticularity]

I'm seeing a lot of the discussion here circling around the issue of priorities. So, here's what I see as the decisive question: Is your priority to get TT positions together somewhere? Or is it for each of you to have, individually, the best possible career?

If your #1 priority is to get TT positions together, take one of your spouse's offers. This is because, as others have pointed out, you are, at the moment, the "catch" here. While you might be able to negotiate some kind of job for your spouse at another institution, it is highly unlikely to be TT. Also, you should probably remember that the Ivies are notorious for NOT tenuring their junior faculty; they are a great place to begin a career, but hardly anyone stays. This would leave you, and your spouse, on the market together again in just a few years.

If your goal is the best possible career for each of you as individuals, you might see if the school where your husband wants to go would give you some more time to decide, while he accepts their offer. (In other words, one of the conditions of his signing would become that they would keep your offer open for awhile.) You would then have to commit to being at different schools if you got an offer elsewhere, rather than trying to negotiate something for him, but perhaps this would be worth it in the long run.

Both of these are ethical, and potentially good professionally and personally for both of you. But you are going to have to choose because you're just not going to get the perfect situation where you know everything in advance.

[canadia]

you might see if the school where your husband wants to go would give you some more time to decide, while he accepts their offer. (In other words, one of the conditions of his signing would become that they would keep your offer open for awhile.) You would then have to commit to being at different schools if you got an offer elsewhere, rather than trying to negotiate something for him, but perhaps this would be worth it in the long run.

Nice suggestion. Me likey.

[grendels_mother]

This isn't advice, but I'd love to know how the OP's spouse managed to negotiate a spousal hire. 

[newgrad09]

This isn't advice, but I'd love to know how the OP's spouse managed to negotiate a spousal hire. 

To be honest, I think it was mostly being the right person at the right school.  Perhaps it is easier when both partners are in the same department?  He was very straightforward about our position during his campus interview, and he emphasized my connections with the existing faculty (and my ability to teach certain courses that require a relatively rare skill set) from the beginning.  The school knew when they offered him the position that they were going to have to seriously consider me in order for him to accept, and surprisingly that didn't seem to hurt his chances of getting the offer.