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It's not easy to be a competent academic married to a scholarly star
WHEN A DEPARTMENT recruits an academic couple, one of the partners is usually the standout. The other is the standby.
The standout scholar is the drawing card, the reason the offer is made in the first place. The partner who tags along is known as the "trailing spouse," the "satellite," the "second income"-or as some of these professors call themselves, the "albatross."
Few issues in faculty recruiting are more fraught with tension than the hiring of academic couples. They have become commonplace in academe as women have entered graduate school in greater numbers, and as institutions have become more open to hiring gay partners.
But it's tough enough these days to land one tenure-track job, let alone two in the same place. Much more often, one-half of a couple finds a tenure-track position and the other half comes along, hoping something will open up on the same campus. As a result, some scholars spend their careers in a series of dead-end positions, watching as their spouse builds academic credentials, gains respect, and wins tenure. Other tagalongs eventually succeed on their own merits, but it can take them a lot longer.
David W. Owen knows that firsthand. He followed along as his wife, Julia Annas skipped from one tenured post to another in three prestigious philosophy departments. He earned his Ph:D. in philosophy in 1979 but is only now up for tenure, at the University of Arizona.
Mr. Owen put his career on hold, working in various part-time posts wherever his wife was recruited. He even spent two years in academic computing at Arizona, where Ms. Annas is now a senior faculty member. The philosophy department there finally offered him a part-time, tenure-- track job in 1990.
"She was more productive and famous at an earlier stage," he says of his wife. "What was required in my case was patience, and hoping I'd eventually establish myself as an academic in my own right."
ACCOMMODATIONS FOR COUPLES
By most standards, academe is quite generous when it comes to helping partners find work in the same place. Compared to corporations, colleges are much more willing to accommodate couples, but that is primarily because they...