executive summary M eeting the needs and…

    executive summary




M
           eeting the needs and expectations of dual-career academic couples--
           while still ensuring the high quality of university faculty--is the next
           great challenge facing universities. Academic couples comprise 36 per-
cent of the American professoriate--representing a deep pool of talent (Figure
1).1 The proportion of academic couples (i.e., couples in which both partners are
academics) at four-year institutions nationally has not changed since 1989.2 What
has changed is the rate at which universities are hiring couples. Academic couple
hiring has increased from 3 percent in the 1970s to 13 percent since 2000.3 In a
recent survey of Canadian science deans, couple hiring emerged as one of the
thorniest issues confronting their faculties.4 Administrators in this study concur.


FIGURE 1: PARtnER StAtUS OF U.S. ACADEMIC WORKFORCE^*
                   9,043 Full-Time Faculty from 13 Leading Research Universities




                                         %
                                Have Employed
                                (Non-Academic)
                                    Partner
                                                                       %
                                                               Have Academic
                                                                  Partner
                                  1%
                             Have Stay-at-
                             Home Partner
                                                     1%
                                                 Are Single




Seventy-two percent of full-time faculty in this study have employed partners.
thirty-six percent have academic partners.
                               ^ All data derive from the Clayman Institute's Managing Academic Careers Survey unless otherwise noted.
                                                                                        * Percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding.
                                                                                                    See Appendix D for methods notes.




                                                                                                                                           1
   One department chair commented that no other aspect of his job arouses as
   much controversy as dual-career hiring.


   Despite the sizable number of academic couples in the workforce, little institutional
   and national data exist describing their career trajectories.5 Institutional approach-
   es to couple hiring tend to be ad hoc, often shrouded in secrecy, and inconsistent
   across departments. Faculty tend to be unfamiliar with key issues and solutions,
   and many know little about their own university's policies and practices.


   But change is afoot. Universities across the country have begun devoting attention
   to dual-career issues. In recent years, a number of conferences and collaborative
                                               efforts have sprung up, and university
   Support for dual                            hiring practices are evolving to keep

   careers opens                               pace.6 In the same way that U.S. uni-
                                               versities restructured hiring practices
   another avenue by                           in the 1960s and 1970s in response to
   which universities can                      increased access to higher education
                                               and the advent of equal opportunity
   compete for the best                        legislation, institutions are again today
   and brightest.                              undergoing major transitions in hiring
                                               practices with respect to couple hiring.


   Ten percent of faculty respondents in this study are part of a couple hire, or "dual
   hire," at their current institutions (this figure includes both recruitment hires and
   retentions).7 Ten percent is a small, but important, proportion of faculty hiring. Uni-
   versities are in danger of losing some of their most prized candidates if suitable
   employment cannot be found for qualified partners. In independent internal stud-
   ies analyzing factors influencing failed faculty recruitment, two prominent U.S.
   research universities found that partner employment ranked high (number one or
   two) in lists that included salary, housing costs, and some 14 to 15 other factors.8
   Similarly, a German study found that 72 percent of German scientists abroad
   cited "career opportunities for the partner" as a decisive factor for scientists con-
   templating a return home.9


   There are three key reasons for taking a new look at couple hiring:


   Excellence. Our study suggests that couples more and more vote with their feet,
   leaving or not considering universities that do not support them. Support for dual
   careers opens another avenue by which universities can compete for the best



and brightest. A professor of medicine in our survey commented that talented
academics are often partnered, and "if you want the most talented, you find in-
novative ways of going after them."


Diversity. Over past decades, universities have worked hard to attract women
and underrepresented minorities to faculty positions and, in many instances, are
meeting with success. The new generation of academics is more diverse in terms
of gender and ethnicity than ever before. With greater diversity comes the need for
new hiring practices. Institutions should not expect new participants to assimilate
into current practices built around old academic models and demographics. This
undermines innovation, opportunity, and equity. New hiring practices are needed
to support a diverse professoriate--and one of these practices is couple hiring.


Quality of Life. Faculty today are a new breed determined more than ever to strike
a sustainable balance between working and private lives. Couple hiring is part of
a deeper institutional restructuring around quality-of-life issues. To enhance com-
petitive excellence, universities are increasingly supporting faculty needs, such as
housing, child care, schools, and elder care, in addition to partner hiring. Attending
to quality-of-life issues has the potential to contribute stability to the workplace.
Faculty may be more productive and more loyal if universities are committed to
their success as whole persons. While often costly up front, assisting faculty ad-
dress the challenges of their personal lives may help universities secure their in-
vestments in the long run.


As a relatively new hiring practice,         new hiring practices
couple hiring is fraught with complexi-
ties and pitfalls. The reality is, however,  are needed to
that 21st century universities increas-      support a diverse
ingly hire couples. One purpose of this
report is to help institutions do a better   professoriate--and
job of partner hiring. To this end, we       one of these practices
recommend that universities develop
agreed-upon and written policies or
                                             is couple hiring.
guidelines for vetting requests for part-
ner hiring and seeing that process through the university. The ultimate goal is not
necessarily to hire more couples but rather to improve the processes by which
partner hiring decisions are made.




                                                                                         
   Key Findings
   Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research launched a major
   study of dual-career academic couples in 2006 in an effort to bring data to bear
   on current debates about couple hiring. As part of this study, we collected survey
   information from more than 9,000 full-time faculty at 13 leading U.S. research uni-
   versities (for a discussion of sample and methods, see Appendix A). This survey
   was supplemented with the collection of hiring policies from participating univer-
   sities and interviews with university administrators. Our unique data set provides
   fresh insights into the place of couples in the academic workforce as well as uni-
   versity recruiting and retention practices. Key findings are as follows:
      · Partners matter: Faculty members' career decisions are strongly influenced
         by partner employment status. Thirty-six percent of full-time faculty at the
         institutions we studied have academic partners; these we call "dual-career
         academic couples." In addition, 36 percent of our survey respondents have
         employed (but non-academic) partners. This means that 72 percent of sur-
         vey respondents overall have employed partners whose careers need to be
         taken into consideration when recruiting.
      · As a strategy to enhance competitive excellence, couple hiring (or dual hir-
         ing) is on the rise. Dual hires comprise an increasing proportion of all faculty
         hires over the last four decades (from 3% in the 1970s to 13% in the 2000s),
         whereas the proportion of academic couples has remained relatively con-
         stant. Overall, 10 percent of faculty enter the academy through dual hires.
         Ninety-three percent of dual hires work at the same institution.
      · Couple hiring can help build a more diverse, equitable, and competitive
         workforce, especially with regard to gender.
           ­ Women are more likely than men to have academic partners (40% of
              female faculty in our sample versus 34% of male faculty). In fact, rates
              of dual hiring are higher among women respondents than among men
              respondents (13% versus 7%). This means that couple hiring becomes
              a particularly relevant strategy for the recruitment and retention of female
              faculty.
           ­ Women in academic couples report that their partner's employment sta-
              tus and opportunities are important to their own career decisions. Not
              only do women more often than men perceive a loss in professional mo-
              bility as a result of their academic partnerships (54% for women versus
              41% for men), but they actively refuse job offers if their partner cannot
              find a satisfactory position. In our study, the number-one reason women
              refused an outside offer was because their academic partners were not




       offered appropriate employment at the new location. These findings have
       significant implications for institutions seeking to recruit top women.
     ­ Couple hiring is important to attract more female faculty to fields where
       women are underrepresented, such as the natural sciences and engi-
       neering. Academics practice "disciplinary endogamy"; that is to say,
       they tend to couple in similar fields of study and are often found in the
       very same department. Endogamy rates are high in the natural sciences,
       particularly among women. Fully 83 percent of women scientists in aca-
       demic couples are partnered with another scientist, compared with 54
       percent of men scientists.
     ­ Historically, men more than women have used their market power to
       bargain for positions for their partners. Men comprise the majority (58%)
       of "first hires" (or the first partner hired in a couple recruitment) who re-
       sponded to our survey. They make up only 26 percent of second hires
       (meaning that women are 74% of second hires). However, gender ratios
       of first and second hires may be changing with time, which suggests
       that there is an increasingly equitable share of bargaining power among
       women and men.
     ­ An important finding is that recruiting women as first hires breaks the
       stereotype of senior academics seeking to negotiate jobs for junior part-
       ners. Remarkably, more than half (53%) of female first hires who are full
       professors are partnered with male academics of equal rank. By con-
       trast, only 19 percent of male first hires who are full professors seek po-
       sitions for women who are their equals in academic rank. Administrators
       need to consider carefully how dual-hire policies might be refined to help
       their institutions achieve greater gender equality.
· Couple hiring may help to advance not only gender equity but also racial/
  ethnic diversity, which enhances competitive excellence. Women and men
  from all backgrounds have academic partners; in fact, among underrepre-
  sented minority respondents to our survey, the gender difference in rate of
  academic coupling disappears (30% of minority women and 32% of minority
  men are partnered with another academic). And although the rate of aca-
  demic coupling among underrepresented minority faculty is generally lower
  than that among faculty overall (31% versus 36%, respectively), the rate of
  dual hiring is the same (10% of all underrepresented minority respondents
  have been part of a dual hire at their current institutions). Dual hiring, in other
  words, may support institutional efforts to compete for the brightest talent
  across the widest spectrum.



                                                                                        
     · Universities are in danger of losing prized candidates if suitable employment
       cannot be found for a partner. When couples have choices, they prefer to live
       together and take jobs where each partner can flourish professionally. A full
       88 percent of faculty who successfully negotiated a dual hire at their current
       institution indicated that the first hire would have refused the position had
       her or his partner not found appropriate employment. Slightly more than 20
       percent also report that they or their partner have taken a job at a less pres-
       tigious institution to improve the couple's overall employment situation.
     · Universities need to understand how policies and practices affect faculty
       attitudes toward dual hires on their campuses. Most survey respondents
       marked "I don't know" in response to the question: Does your current insti-
       tution have a written hiring and retention policy in place for dual-career aca-
       demic couples? However, the one institution in our study with the highest rate
       of faculty awareness also enjoys the highest rate of perceived institutional
       and departmental support for accommodating academic couples. We also
       find that schools with written policies have higher rates of perceived support
       for academic couples than do schools without written policies. Thus, aware-
       ness and clarity are critical to creating a positive climate overall.
     · One problem with couple hiring is that a stigma of "less good" often attaches
       to a second hire. Study data suggest, however, that second hires, when
       full-time faculty members, are not less productive than are their disciplinary
       peers.


   Policy Recommendations
   U.S. universities are in the midst of a major transition in hiring practices. Couples
   comprise a significant proportion of the academic workforce, and couple hiring,
   when done properly, can support important institutional objectives. Based on our
   findings, we offer the following recommendations:


   Develop a dual-career academic couple hiring protocol. Universities have much
   to gain by developing agreed-upon, written protocols or guidelines for the pro-
   cesses whereby requests for partner hires flow efficiently through the institution.
   Each institution needs to develop policies that are right for it. Well-developed
   protocols increase the transparency and fairness as well as the speed with which
   departments can vet potential candidates. Written protocols may also help culti-
   vate departmental reciprocity in partner hiring.


   Think of the university as an intellectual and corporate whole. Finding an appro-
   priate fit for a qualified partner is one of the most difficult aspects of dual hiring



and requires cooperation among departments across the university. Couple hiring
may be an instance where the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts, and
faculty should be encouraged to think of the university not as a set of autonomous
departments but as an intellectual and corporate whole.


Use dual hiring to increase gender equality. Our data and practices at one of our
participating universities suggest that recruiting women and underrepresented
minorities as first (rather than second) hires may help universities address both
diversity and equity issues. Women more than men tend to request positions for
partners of equal academic rank.


Budget funds for dual hiring. Couple hiring is now part of the cost of doing busi-
ness. Universities need to budget funds for partner hiring to increase the speed
and agility with which they can place qualified partners.


Communicate with faculty. A general awareness of institutional goals and priori-
ties as well as policies and practices surrounding couple hiring can lead to greater
cooperation across the university as individual cases arise. The process of de-
veloping or refining protocols provides an excellent opportunity to saturate the
scholarly community with information about partner hiring and to build greater
consensus.


Make the partner issue easier to raise. Job candidates currently have much to lose
by discussing the employment needs of a partner too soon (fearing that prefer-
ence may consciously or unconsciously be given unencumbered candidates). At
the same time, universities have much to lose by not finding out about partners
early enough to act. Universities that are dual-career couple friendly should signal
this in job announcements, recruitment materials, and university websites.


Interview potential partner hires. Departments asked to consider hiring a partner
must do so carefully. Partners should go through a department's full review pro-
cess. This will help build consensus within the department and, should the candi-
date be successful, contribute to a warm welcome for the new colleague.


Negotiate partner positions fully up front. Among dual-hired faculty who were dis-
satisfied with at least one aspect of the process, 27 percent thought that they
did not receive what was promised during negotiations. Universities need to step
up to dual hiring and make decisions about where and how partners will--or will



                                                                                       
   not--fit into a particular institution at the time of hire. All promises need to be
   made in writing before either partner signs a contract.


   Collaborate with neighboring institutions. The many Higher Education Recruit-
   ment Consortia (HERCs) springing up around the country provide new opportuni-
   ties for institutions to coordinate job opportunities. It is important to publicize lo-
   cal HERCs effectively on campus so that dual-career couples, faculty, department
   chairs, and deans take advantage of these networks.


   Develop dual-career programs. Universities should hire dedicated staff or out-
   side consultants to assist faculty relocate. For partners of new or current faculty
   seeking academic positions, programs should appoint a senior faculty member
   to serve in an official capacity as special assistant, vice provost, or the like. This
   administrator will work with departments to place partners. For non-academic
   partners seeking employment, program staff or consultants should be available
   to assist in the on- or off-campus job search. Program staff may help all faculty
   with quality-of-life issues, such as locating good-quality housing, daycare, elder
   care, and schools in the area.


   Evaluate dual-career programs. Universities need to collect data and evaluate
   their programs in order to (1) assist universities in overall strategic planning and
   (2) ensure equitable treatment of faculty partners--both academic and non-
   academic.


   Structure of the Report
   It is our hope that this data-driven report will assist universities, departments,
   faculty, and academic couples themselves in understanding the growing phe-
   nomenon of dual-career academic couple hiring. This report has three parts:


      Part I. Partnering Patterns in the Academic Workforce identifies types
      of academic partnerships and presents new data concerning dual-career
      academic couples.
      Part II. Academic Couples: Career Paths and Priorities focuses on
      academic couples, their culture and values, and how these relate to university
      hiring.
      Part III. University Programs, Policies, and Practices: How to Maximize
      Options? examines current university policies and practices surrounding
      couple hiring. Here we lay out the many issues surrounding such hires and,
      where possible, offer new solutions.