Ms. Mentor

Her Partner Stole My Job

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Question (from "The Patsy"): I've been skunked, and not for the first time, by an academic couple.

I made the shortlist for a tenure-track job at Very Good School. But the position was yanked to create a job in another subfield for "Tommy," a known mediocrity whose only merit is being married to "Trish," a prodigy who's won teaching awards and research grants. Knowing that "Tommy" got my job sticks in my craw and fills my soul with bile.

I remain an angry adjunct. Besides starting an Academic Assassins for Hire franchise ("Murders by top Ph.D.s only!"), what can I do?

Answer: Ms. Mentor believes that Academic Assassins for Hire, while it has a certain Darwinian charm, is not a good career move. Nor are spouse or partner hirings always evil. A few examples:

• Before the wife of "Dr. Nobel Prizewinner" joined him as a professor at Big Ivy, Dr. Prizewinner had been taking off for three and four-day weekends, leering at young women, and losing his students' research proposals. Once the Prizewinners were together under one roof, she had time to finish her book and Dr. Prizewinner regained his zest for attracting grant money and sharing it with the best and brightest students. Everyone won.

• Whenever "Dr. J. Crackerjack" moved to a higher administrative job at a new college, she insisted that the history department hire her husband, who was studying academic bureaucracies. He was a great raconteur with a historian's extraordinary memory, and he was full of academic gossip that delighted students and made him the hit of every dinner party.

"The Patsy" needn't fear the Crackerjacks or the Prizewinners. Her competitors are the Twinklers, people who may rise to stardom -- or burn out ignominiously, sometimes over thwarted romances. Of the thousands who meet in grad school and fall in love with each other's minds, Ms. Mentor wonders how many know how hard it will be to combine love and work. Most will never again be academic peers on the same campus.

Some colleges make gracious accommodations. When "Clara" got a tenure-track job, she negotiated an instructorship for her "Charlie," also a Ph.D. He volunteered to be the department Web master, and is now one of the top "computer guys" on the campus. Flexible and adroit, he built his own ladder and climbed it.

Others try but fumble. "Kyle and Kathy" were both hired at Half-Great U., where Kyle was tenured first -- but his boorish behavior so annoyed his colleagues that they voted not to tenure Kathy. Both eventually got jobs at Minor U., where Kathy is still bitter and Kyle has found another woman.

Ms. Mentor's point is that no one can predict how Twinklers will turn out, nor whether they'll stay together (and if they do, will they form a voting bloc to do egregious or sadistic things?)

Meanwhile, hiring frenzies are not universal. Bidding wars are rare at regional universities, and almost unknown in community colleges. Hiring may also vary for different kinds of couples: Ms. Mentor hopes that Margaret and Mitzi, or Bill and Bob, would get the same considerations in the recruitment game as a straight couple, but she has doubts.

As for Ms. Mentor's original correspondent: "The Patsy" did apply in good faith to Very Good School -- where administrators cancelled one job, created another they did not advertise, and handed it to Tommy Mediocrity, because he's married to Trish, a fledgling star. Ms. Mentor trusts her readers to comment on whether this is legal. She questions whether it is moral.

If Very Good School is in a rural area, perhaps Tommy and Trish can double as de facto house parents and advisers. If it's a religious college, they may be role models. Tommy may eventually make an excellent daddy. Yet he lacks the academic expertise that Patsy has. If she does not get a job, she will be lost to the world of scholarship forever. Students won't be able to study her subfield, nor share her research.

Dual-career couples do struggle, everywhere. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky left the Edmonton Oilers to be with his ambitious wife, Janet Jones, in Los Angeles. Julia Roberts and former husband Lyle Lovett reportedly split up because they never saw each other. Yet some marriages survive because the principals live apart, and meet only for romantic weekend trysts. There is no longer one model for a family, nor for a successful academic -- and Ms. Mentor wonders if Patsy, living alone and focusing on her career, might do more for students than someone whose tasks include shoring up a mediocre partner.

Ms. Mentor has received hundreds of letters on "the two-body problem," the most popular subject in her mailbox. She recommends Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George's volume, The Family Track, and Robert Drago's continuing research. She also encourages vociferous public discussion (besides the usual scheming and backbiting) whenever a "spousal hire" is suggested.

Some might point Patsy toward a lawyer, but Ms. Mentor wants her to persevere in her writing, for publication is the only tangible step toward stardom. Work is also consoling, while thoughts of revenge simply rile up the stomach. Ms. Mentor cheers The Patsy for her sense of humor, her independence, and her feistiness -- qualities admirable in academics, and in real humans as well.

Question: According to the latest U.S. Department of Education figures, the average assistant professor is 43 years old. Should we still postpone childbearing until after tenure?

Answer: No.

SAGE READERS: Ms. Mentor's correspondents seem to have a little time on their hands. "Phoebe," the subject of a previous column, whose dissertation wasn't what it should have been is quite the villainess in the eyes of one correspondent, who diagnoses her as "a perpetual grad student slinking around the language lab because she's uncomfortable hanging out with the big boys and girls." Another is convinced she's "verging on the psychopathic." While Ms. Mentor does enjoy vivid imaginings, she urges her readers to -- well -- read what's on the page. That is all that we know about Phoebe.

As always, Ms. Mentor invites rants, gossip, and queries, especially for future columns on coming out, religion on campus, and feuds. She rarely answers letters personally and all correspondence is confidential. She conceals identifying details, will not open attachments, loves subject headings, and cannot be rushed. Many a query has already been handled in her tome, in her archive, or by other writers on The Chronicle's Careers Site. Much wisdom is available for those who seek it, and one needn't reinvent the comb.