Married to Their Careers

As a rule, Harvard professors with tenure do not accept appointments from other universities. Generally speaking, no incentives could persuade professors to make a move--neither more money, nor subsidized housing, nor a chaired position can do the trick.

But if a university offers tenured positions to both Harvard professor and spouse, the other school just might find itself with two new faculty members.

At least that's what happened to the masters of Mather House, the Herlihys. After spending more than a decade at Harvard, Lea professor of Medieval History David Herlihy and his wife, History Lecturer Patricia A. Herlihy announced in January that they will be leaving this summer for two tenured positions in Brown University's history department.

"Patricia's career was the decisive consideration in our decision to move," David Herlihy says. "She has not had a tenured position at a major American university, nor even a tenuretrack position. This is what she was trained for, and this is what we both wanted her to have."

Herlihy says that Brown's offer was even more enticing because he thought it was unlikely that his wife would be offered a tenured position at Harvard or another college in the Boston area in the near future. "We've been here for 13 years and nothing has happened so far, so when this opportunity came along, we had to take it."

But cases like this one--where one academic relocates for the sake of a spouse's career-have become more and more common in recent years.

For example, Robert and Nan Keohane left Stanford University for posts in the Boston area--Nan Keohane became president of Wellesley College, while Robert became a professor of government at Harvard.

And last year, Associate Professor of Government Stephen Holmes, and his wife, Assistant to the Dean of the Faculty Nancy Maull, left their Harvard jobs for the University of Chicago. There the husband-wife team snagged posts as a tenured professor and as an assistant to the president, respectively.

"If you are both academics, it is going to be difficult. Both parties have to be willing to compromise--the interests of both must always be taken into consideration," the Mather House master says.

Recruiting Factor

But the recent rise of two-career families has caused problems not just on the personal level, but for Harvard's faculty recruiting efforts as well.

In a draft of a report to the faculty, Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence says that the two-career families are one of the main reasons why Harvard is finding it more and more difficult to persuade stars from other universities to make the move to Cambridge."[One] factor of importance is the two-career family. With increasing frequency this new fact of academic life complicates the appointment-making process for Harvard and for other universities," Spence writes in the draft.

"Two-career families are less mobile; joint career and location choices are more complex," the Spence report concludes. "Anticipating and trying to alleviate future stress, two-career families will try to make choices of jobs and locations that present reasonable opportunities for both spouses. Some will plan ahead, sometimes quite far ahead. They will make joint decisions that are neither individual's first choice, viewed narrowly from the standpoint of the job and the environment....Moving has higher personal costs for a couple when both work."

In response to the trend toward dual tenure appointments, Phyllis A. Keller, associate dean for academic planning, says that Harvard does try to help academics' spouses find jobs on an informal level. "We try to be helpful in providing information and contacts to the spouses to help them relocate, both for academic and non-academic jobs."

Keller says that for spouses seeking academic jobs, "We don't have any formal way of going about this, but we have lots of interconnections with other schools. Sometimes it does work out, especially at the non-tenured level; it gets much more difficult if they are looking for a tenured position."

Sacrifice From Whom?

So just how much personal sacrifice does it require to be an academic married to an academic? To a large degree, the type and the extent of the sacrifice depends on what rung of the career ladder each spouse is on.

Academics generally agree that one of the least difficult situations occurs if both spouses are non-tenured academics. If this is the ease, "the first combination of jobs is not a problem--it's generally not that difficult to find two assistant professorships in the same city," says Professor of Political Economy Richard J. Zeckhauser, whose wife, Sally, is president of Harvard Real Estate, Inc.

"But then, seven years later, when you're at the tenure level, you have a real problem. What if she gets a job at Northwestern, and I get one in California? What do we do? Tenure offers tend to be scarce, and there are very, very few scholars who can get an offer in any city in America," the K-School professor says.

"Other careers are more flexible than academia. Academicians tend to carry a particular specialty, which may not be needed in a wide variety places, so it really limits where they can work. Two lawyers could go anywhere, but for two academicians, it's much more difficult," Herlihy says.

Zeckhauser says he doubts whether one popular solution, commuter marriages, makes sense for most couples. "If a guy is working at Princeton and his wife is at Harvard, I'd say that the probability is one in three that they'll be divorced in two years."

Many scholars say that it can also be especially trying when one spouse has a tenured apointment and the other does not, since one person has a stable, life-time post, while his or her spouse may only be able to find a job thousands of miles away.

Brandeis Professor Sissela M. Bok, who is married to President Derek C. Bok, says that she and her husband discussed this situation early in their careers.

"My husband said that if I could not find a job around here, he would be willing to find a job somewhere else, too. Knowing this relieved an enormous burden," says the philosophy professor who teaches Moral Reasoning 24 "Moral Choice and Personal Responsibility." But Bok says that since they first came to Cambridge in the mid-1960s, she has not had to take her husband up on the offer.

Couples often find that one scholar in the family is one step ahead of the other in the tenure game. When Sociology Department Chairman Aage B. Sorensen was offerred a senior tenured position here, his wife, Assistant Professor of Sociology Annemette Sorensen, was also offerred a junior faculty post at the same time.

But by accepting Harvard's offer, Annemette Sorensen gave up a job in which she would have had a real shot at a lifetime post. "I left a position at the University of Wisconsin where I had a decent chance of tenure for my position at Harvard where I have almost no chance at all," Sorensen says.

And so, in a few years, she will probably be looking for a tenured position. "In some number of years, I'll be leaving Harvard. That's how you have to look at it," she says.

But Sorensen adds that since this will nothappen for quite a while, she and her husband arenot seriously worrying about imminent moves. Shealso says that Boston is one of the best locationsin the nation to look for an academic job becauseof the large number of colleges in Massachusetts.

But whatever the Sorensens eventually do, itprobably won't be easy. "There's always a lot ofproblems in terms of finding jobs. I'm not surewhether our both being in the same field makes iteasier or harder," she says.

"The biggest problem is that I got my Ph.D.about 10 years after my husband did, so our timingis different. I think in cases like that, theyounger [spouse] carries much of the burden,"Sorensen says. "It's always hard to come in as thesecond person, because there's always thesuspicion that you're not there on your ownmerit," she adds.

Room for Two

Getting tenured positions at the same schoolfor both a husband and a wife requires a mixtureof talent, perseverance, and sheer luck. For sucha dual-placement to work out, exactly the rightsort of slots have to be available at exactly theright times, and the married scholars each have tobe exactly the sort that the school is lookingfor.

It was just such a rare merging of the school'sneeds with the couple's that allowed Brown tooffer tenured positions to both of the Herlihys.One of Brown's medieval historians was retiring,and a Russian historian was taking anadministrative position, which meant that he wouldbe working only half-time, Associate Provost tothe Faculty John J. Quinn says. As David Herlihyis a medieval historian, and Patricia Herlihy is aRussian historian, "we thought it would beattractive to them. It happened to be a happycoincidence," says Quinn