January 15, 2008

Push for Spousal Hire Causes Trouble at U. of Montana

Some faculty members at the University of Montana aren’t happy that officials there are trying to find a job for the spouse of a professor they would like to hire.

According to the Missoulian, the history department would like to hire Maha Nassar as its Middle East scholar. And to seal the deal, administrators hope to create a tenure-track job for her husband, Scott C. Lucas, a University of Arizona assistant professor who teaches Islamic law and the Koran.

Faculty members at the university wonder where the money will come from to pay Mr. Lucas and what exactly he would teach, and they are upset about how quickly the situation has evolved, the newspaper reported.

The president of the University of Montana, George M. Dennison, told the paper that the institution’s provost would make the final decision. —Audrey Williams June

Comments

1. The UM policy shows great insight into what will be necessary to have women be better represented in the profession at the highest levels. As chair of a department, it gives me great comfort to know that if I were faced with a similar situation my university would make every effort to hire the spouse.

   — Randall W. Engle    Jan 15, 03:46 PM    #

2. Partner accommodation is not a new thing — indeed, progressive universities that are serious about recruiting the best and the brightest diverse faculty have used this tool successfully for quite some time. Is the issue his specialty area and how that fits into UMs curriculum, or is it the policy itself?

   — Torg    Jan 15, 03:56 PM    #

3. Without policies that allow and support spousal hires, universities cannot hope to attract many of the people they want. Assuming that the spouse is qualified for the position being considered (either faculty or staff), it is imperitive for universities to acknowledge that two-academic households are becomming more and more the norm.

   — Bill    Jan 15, 04:03 PM    #

4. This is far from an unusual situation. The fact is that hiring one highly desirable faculty member often requires hiring an acceptable spouse. Get over it.

   — Al    Jan 15, 04:05 PM    #

5. As a UM alumnus I am relieved that the first four comments support the university and note that this is common practice. I would guess what we have here is a tempest in a teapot. The story does not say whether the complaints are from any official faculty body, or just a few individual faculty sounding off. If the latter, this should not even constitute a news story, but too often this is how the media proceed.

   — /case hardened    Jan 15, 04:24 PM    #

6. Why is this even a Chronicle news item? These kinds of conversations and debates go on all the time when faculty are hired. And what kind of editorial policy at the Chronicle does this represent? “Some faculty members aren’t happy?” Which faculty members? With what investment, knowledge of, or agenda in the situation? Representing whom? Is it a small group of faculty members disgruntled at the idea of a spousal hire, or this spousal hire in particular, or is the implication that the University of Montana faculty has risen up as one to protest this? In any case, the Chronicle reporter provides no context or facts that would allow the reader to understand or assess the significance of a situation that occurs all of the time. It’s fake news, and it’s very shoddy reporting; surely you must have more substantial news to report.

   — POD    Jan 15, 04:35 PM    #

7. Kudos to POD. His/her comments are more cogent and read much better than the Chronicle piece.

   — rec    Jan 15, 05:13 PM    #

8. On the flip side:
   If a Spousal Hire divorces the faculty hire while at U of MT… Does the Spousal Hire automatically lose their administrator created tenure-track job?
   ~~
   I recall a few years ago President Dennison ordered an academic department to place a U of MT staff person in a full-time faculty position. Department faculty were obviously unwelcoming and did not rest until that new faculty was eventually dismissed.

   SO nothing new on this campus or in this article…

   — Ed. D.    Jan 15, 05:26 PM    #

9. I agree with POD. Not only is this not a new item in the least, this article represents the lowest standard of journalistic integrity. I hope I don’t upset any of my colleagues, lest I see an article on here starting with, “Some faculty members at X University are upset that Dr. S received 10 extra TA hours last fall.”

   — DLS    Jan 15, 08:57 PM    #

10. This happens all the time. Not only public universities but also minority institutions hire spouses, nephews, nieces, lovers, etc.

    — kvc    Jan 15, 09:50 PM    #

11. Many of the posters here seem to assume this is a win-win for everyone and that this couple are the two best academics available. More likely, some other department (not History!) is going to get stuck with a junior prof they don’t really want. Yes, it happens all the time, but that doesn’t mean it should. This is a serious and legitimate problem.

    — Comm Prof    Jan 15, 11:22 PM    #

12. It is called Dual Career families. Most top universities and companies are familiar with these new hiring policies. But to create a new tenured position is a bit over the board. A tenured track position, based on performance, winning NSF, .. grants and also satisfactory student numbers in the classes that the guy teaches.

    — Karl    Jan 16, 06:19 AM    #

13. Would the university be so quick to create a tenure-track position for the spouse if their primary goal was to hire the husband? Hiring the spouse is one thing; creating a tenure-track position (when many institutions/departments are losing tenure lines) is quite another. What responsibilities does a couple have when they choose to become a couple? If Coca-Cola wants to hire Mary, would we also expect the corporation to hire her husband, John, as well? Or vice versa? What makes academics so special?

    — Sally    Jan 16, 07:00 AM    #

14. One issue that necessitates universities using dual hires as a recruitment and retention practice is the fact that only 1% of Americans have a PhD, MD, JD, or EdD (required to be faculty)...so the applicant pool is narrow. As a past-Senior Administrator who spent much time with faculty recruitment, if you are unwilling or unable to provide the 2nd position…both people will go to a university that can fulfill their needs. It is a necessary business practice for those institutions who want to provide academic services.

    — MM, PhD    Jan 16, 08:24 AM    #

15. If I recall correctly, Montana used to have an anti-nepotism policy against such hires. If that was (and is) so, Montana can expect to lose out on qualified couples whose presence would enrich and stabilize the university. As others have noted, a lot of outstanding universities are using dual hires to recruit their first choices. Over two decades ago, when I was finishing a PhD at an Ivy university, that university successfully recruited a very famous historian by offering both him and his wife tenured positions. The husband has long since passed away, but my friends who worked with her will tell you the real coup was hiring the wife!

    — Carol    Jan 16, 09:04 AM    #

16. While I agree that this is not the best-written article, I am extremely pleased to see that someone is talking about this issue openly!
    I have long felt this practice to be a dirty one… Dual Career Families my eye. As a program director, I often spend the better part of my day assisting and covering for incompetent spouses of high-profile scholars. Moreover, there is no accommodation or thought given to faculty like myself who marry AFTER they are hired. If the spouse-to-be is from out of town, most universities make little to no attempt to retain good faculty who wish their intended to relocate. My husband had a devil of a time, and though he is now in a position at my school, it wasn’t easy… in spite of his impressive experience as an administrator.
    Such hiring practices are simply a recruitment ploy and a rotten loophole that would be openly rejected in the private sector. (Some corporations may do this, but it is MUCH less common, and based on different hiring criteria.)
    I think the main reason this is becoming standard practice is because of the growing number of women with attractive credentials – and less qualified husbands. Back in the day, brilliant, PhD’d wives of scholars were told to teach at the local high school, wait a year or two for an adjunct spot in their area, or just stay home. For female spouses, things really haven’t changed all that much. In my department’s most recent searches, considerably more effort was made for the husbands of female candidates. With the men we’ve hired in the last five years, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of their fascinating, degreed wives. Another daily reminder that academia is behind the times…. around here, it’s still “different for girls.”

    — Katie    Jan 16, 09:11 AM    #

17. Its called supply and demand. Currently in many fields it is a sellers market, as there are not enough highly qualified women and minorities to fill quotas, affimative action hires and just to balance the work force with respect to ethnic and sexual percentages among the student bodies. So of course, the women are trying to negotiate the best deals they can for themselves and their husgands. With the pay scales what they are in academics, the significant other can no longer stay home, either the husband or the wife, so they both choose to work and also want the luxary and security of a tenured position. What probably is not nice, is for the dual career family to split (divorce) and then you have people who no longer like each other, both at your respective universities. In most large metropolitan areas, the univerisities can work with each other, and each university and/or college gets a good hire. But in the smaller cities, especially univesity towns, the universities are happy to get a renowned academic to even come, so you have to ante up. If the football coaches can get $4,000,000 year at the University of Alabama, and hundreds of thousounds for his many assistants, then I think most universities can bite the bullet to get a renowned academic. If not, they are in the wrong business!! as universtiy education has become internationalized and is now a big business.

    — KJJ    Jan 16, 09:32 AM    #

18. “Some faculty members aren’t happy.” Boy, that’s news!

    Show me the day that all faculty members are happy on any given issue and I will volunteer for a nice swim in a Montana lake in February.

    — EJB    Jan 16, 09:47 AM    #

19. From a look at the debate this has inspired over the wisdom of spousal hires, this is indeed a story that The Chronicle should be covering. For those like POD who have questions that this short item doesn’t answer, here’s a lesson on Chronicle news blog items. They often flag issues or disputes and link to coverage in a local newspaper. In this case, the Missoulian provides a long explanation of the case at hand. Click on the link and all your questions — including those about which faculty members are upset — will be answered.

    — Robin Wilson    Jan 16, 11:04 AM    #

20. ... and to top it off, the tag-along faculty member will likely be paid more than current high-performing, better qualified, mid-career faculty. And we will then see Zimbardo’s “bad barrel” phenomenon in which heretofore good apples suddenly go bad.

    Such hires can be quite costly.

    — Zimbardo effect    Jan 16, 12:45 PM    #

21. Most departments are happy to get a trailing spouse ladder FTE as a benefit from a leading spouse hire, BUT ONLY IF THE TRAILING SPOUSE IS QUALIFIED TO JOIN THE DEPARTMENT, and that is the SOLE purview of the hiring department. A president, chancellor or dean who compromises a department’s academic integrity by imposing by fiat a ladder—or for that matter, a non-ladder—hire should be fired immediately.

    — marci    Jan 16, 01:05 PM    #

22. The problem is that this spouse has connections to organizations that sponsor terrorism. He is not a moderate Muslim. I am liberal and believe in diversity but even that has its limits. I hate it when I sound like someone from FOX news but so be it.

    — Obilic    Jan 16, 01:54 PM    #

23. Sorry, I’m lost: what’s a “ladder” in this context? I know what a “trailing spouse” is, but . . .

    — paulo    Jan 16, 02:38 PM    #

24. I wonder if many supporters of spousal/partner hires would be singing the same tune if it were a brand new football coach who was insisting that his (for the sake of argument, let’s say academically qualified) wife be hired for a tenure-track position.

    — J. Ward    Jan 16, 03:09 PM    #

25. This case and the comments above further showcase why costs are skyrocketing in Higher Ed.

    Fact is, higher ed is way overfunded, and campuses are replete with non-essential programs, staff and (especially) faculty put there to pander to whatever group is the flavor of the month. Proponents of such politically correct playground equipment and personnel are as consistent as they are vociferous in how their exploits should be funded: the American taxpayer.

    — M. Miller    Jan 16, 04:46 PM    #

26. If you and the American taxpayers think education is expensive, try ignorance, like China did during its Cultural Revolution. Whether we like it or not, many of the low tech low skills jobs are moving off shore or to cheaper non union states (Saturn plant in Tennessee was non union, and housing and cost of living in the South has been cheaper than in Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn, before the home mortgage crisis in Michigan, which the Democratic candidates did not want to touch!!). Hence we need to have top universities and colleges in each state to make a highly skilled and educated work force. It is now wonder that CA’s economy is so strong with all of the top universities there, almost free junior and community colleges and good tax breaks for small startups. Other states who do not want to compete, like Michigan are being hit hard economically. The multinationals and top students/researchers will migrated where they can both win. As was stated in another article here, there is not a lack of highly skilled and educated students and researchers, but there is a lack of them who are willing and able to work for the low wages (due to high student loan debt and high cost of university education and training, other then CA where again the junior and community colleges are very reasonably priced. Even the Governor of CA, Arnold got a relatively cheap education in CA.

    — Karl    Jan 17, 06:28 AM    #

27. Spousal hires are nothing new and really not news-worthy in any publication of credibility.

    Typically they come with, at best, mediocre results if not embarrassingly awkward or even tragic ones. I can point to several flunky “spices” on my campus that have life-time appointments (and paychecks) that coincide with their spouse’s tenured appointment. Typically these parasites just get passed around from academic department to administrative divisions, doing nothing but swatting flies off their bellies, when not taking company time to participate in Civil War Re-Enactments and then submitting their travel receipts as “professional development”.

    But having said that, the practice of hiring the ostensibly hetero-sexual, legally-sanctioned partner of any human organism is offensive and only reminds us all of the archaically convenient notions of “fairness” that still gasp for air in the rarified environment of the quivering academy.

    In the “real” world of market-driven corporate considerations, when an individual is hired, s/he is more than adequately rewarded for her/his commitment to the institution/corporation. The responsibility of her/his spouse is just that —-her/his, NOT that of the university coffers or in the case of the state-supported institution, the burden of the tax payer.

    I might have been impressed if this were a gay couple who were being treated in a truly liberal and egalitarian manner and not in a tarted-up, politically-correct and overtly corrupt academic manner.

    But the most humorous part of this article was… “the provost would make the final decision”. What a classic example of buck passing and so typically academic

    Really now. Is anyone still in possession of integrity in the academy?

    And Mr. Chips continues to scratching the inside of his coffin.

    — greg    Jan 17, 02:56 PM    #

28. Readers of your article on spousal accomodation need to be aware that in the Missoulian article, the reporter said that “many” of the faculty she talked to also told her that two members of job candidate Scott Lucas’ mosque became el Quaida members. She neglected to say that
    Scott Lucas was in knee pants and el Quaida nonexistent when the first passed through on his way to radicalization elsewhere, and that Lucas was a teen-ager entering college when the second, not yet radicalized or in el
    Quaida, passed through. Anti-Muslim smears in newspapers are protected by the first amendment, and the “many” faculty who linked Lucas to el Quaida neglected to give their names or were not named. One can see why. If the Chroniocle thinks this incident is about spousal accomodation, they have missed the story, which is national. lane

    — lane    Jan 21, 05:09 PM    #

29. To clarify: If Scott Lucas’ mosque were “linked to el Quaida,” as the reporter says “many” unnamed faculty claim, then it does not matter that she also reports that he arrived after the two putative terrorists were present at this supposed terrorist center.After all, Lucas might have chosen that mosque precisely because it WAS “linked to” el Quaida. Only by reorting that neither terrorist was a terrorist while at the mosque, each passing though years apart , can we see that both the mosque and Scott Lucas are clean. Without this vital information, Lucas remains smeared despite his “later arrival” at the mosque reported in the story, because this mosque is left incorrectly “linked to el Quaida.” Bad show. There is far, far more to this story, but it has to be done well. lane

    — lane    Jan 21, 06:09 PM    #

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