Partner hires across disciplines?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I am a junior tenure-track faculty member. My partner is a post-doc working in the life sciences. They are searching for TT positions, but they do not want to work at or near my school. Our ideal scenario is that they will get a TT position and also get me a full-time job at the same school--either a TT job or a full-time lecturer position. I would, of course, prefer a TT job, but if the school is a good enough fit for my partner, I would be happy with a full-time NTT position.

If my partner is able to get a job offer, how likely is that scenario? Does anyone have any experience with partner hires across disciplines and fields?

I will add that I am a good job candidate in general--I have several publications, I have secured some research fellowships, lots of teaching experience, I specialize in a field where departments always need teaching. I'm sure that doesn't hurt, but I don't know how much it helps.

Any advice or accounts of personal experience in this arena would be appreciated!

These are excellent questions. Another reader submitted the following reply:

I am in a similar position, though it is my partner who is the TT in the sciences while I am in a postdoc. In our case, my partner's institution was not accommodating in the least. The philosophy department there refused to hire me except as an adjunct (despite my having a strong cv), mainly because I do a very different kind of philosophy than they are used to. My partner has been forced to seek out external offers in order to get leverage for some kind of retention offer from their institution, which has made things unpleasant for them in their department. Meanwhile, I have generally been unable to do anything about the situation, with all the burden falling on my partner. It has been extremely difficult. I haven't had much success in this area, but my advice would be to refuse any offer of a short-term position for you (e.g. 1-2 years), because when that position expires you won't have any leverage to get something better.

Unfortunately, this response seems right to me. My sense is that non-permanent non-TT positions are probably not a good option. I personally know several cases of people who were lured to universities by a non-TT job for a spouse or partner along with the hope (and encouragement) that it would turn into something more--but unfortunately it never did, and in the end the couple were in a worse position than before. Of course, if the non-TT job is permanent (e.g. a permanent full-time lectureship or teaching professor position), then that may be a different story. But generally speaking, it seems (sadly) that for a couple to have a real hope of getting something good to work out, the couple must have real leverage somehow--usually, as the last comment indicates, a competing offer by another university. Still, even there, my sense is that unless both partners are considered highly desirable candidates, the university may just be willing to let the couple walk, as it were. 

But this is just my sense, and may be overly pessimistic. Do any of you have any helpful experiences or insights to offer? 

Comments

[sad to say]

These are very challenging. You are basically asking another department to give up the opportunity for their own search (which they might have been waiting 5 years for), so that they can hire your partner. Most people would NOT want this if they were in the department losing a search and gaining a colleague they did not have any plan to hire.
In one case I witnessed at a 4 year college, a department was willing to offer the partner a temporary position - the partner ended up getting a TT job at a research university.

[Conrad]

An asymmetry between hiring in philosophy and in many "hard" sciences is important to consider. When hiring a philosopher, the only real costs are their salary and associated "startup" costs. Philosophers are relatively cheap to hire. Hiring a scientist often involves proving them with a lab and footing the associated overhead and materials costs. So scientists are relatively expensive to hire.

Other things equal, universities prefer to hire philosophers rather than scientists as "trailing spouses" since philosophers are cheaper to hire than scientists. If you're a philosopher partnered with a scientist, you're much more likely to be the spousal hire rather than the initial hire since spousal hires for scientists are comparatively much more expensive and so much more rare.

[Partner Hire]

Hi, I'm the OP. To be clear, Marcus (and others), have you witnessed a partner being hired on as a NTT, full-time lecturer (or VAP or whatever your university's terminology is), and then eventually that position was not renewed? Because, yes, that seems like a disaster for the couple. I'd be happy with a more-or-less permanent full-time NTT position, but I hadn't considered the possibility that it would disappear after a year or two.

[Marcus Arvan]

“Marcus (and others), have you witnessed a partner being hired on as a NTT, full-time lecturer (or VAP or whatever your university's terminology is), and then eventually that position was not renewed?”

Yes. (Note: I’m not referring to my university. It has happened to friends of mine elsewhere, and one or both of them are probably going to have to leave the profession as a result).

[SLACer]

I was in this camp, too (I'm the philosopher, my spouse is in the life-sciences). We both had TT jobs at different schools, and then got very lucky: my institution was hiring in my wife's field, and she applied and ultimately got the job. Any prior attempt to negotiate something at either institution was fruitless, even though we were both already TT, and both schools are very "well-regarded."

My one piece of advice, I think, is that it can help if the person at the institution you both want to be at gets out in the community, gets involved, meets faculty in other departments, is regarded as a good citizen, etc. Doing these things certainly didn't get my wife hired: she got the job because she was an outstanding candidate. But I doubt it hurt.

[Keep your head up...a little?]

First, everything Conrad said above!

Second, I don't want to accidentally instill undue optimism, but in case we're looking for one positive story...

I had a TT-position, while my wife was postdoc'ing in biology. That institution was very unhelpful on the spousal front. But, she then secured a TT position elsewhere, and they did offer me a position (this stage was pre-COVID by a couple weeks). It started as a 2-year VAP, but by spring of the first year (which was this past spring, during COVID), they worked with me to figure out a permanent position. It's NTT, but a promotable position, closer to TT than lectureship (in their own words), and they have me doing TT orientation this year to back that up.

I should also mention that the position is part teaching, part running an ethics initiative. I do think my ability to do the later was really helpful in my case. But, I did get the impression that they would have worked with me either way. Hard to know for sure.

So, it can happen if the institution is motivated. But, I think the institutions so motivated, are few and far between.

[Fingers crossed]

I've been in a similar position: I'm a philosophy PhD and my spouse sought tenure track positions in medical research.

Our experience was extremely varied. One job flatly refused to help find me a position. Another offered me work doing grantwriting and the like within the medical college. Another had agreements across colleges to help fund positions for spouses, including permanent NTT jobs.

These are institutional things one cannot really know until being offered the position, in my experience. (My spouse agrees with this assessment.)

Best of luck!