Education: Marriage of the Minds

At Hampshire College in western Massachusetts, the faculty name plates on office doors read like an academic version of All in the Family. In the science building alone, for example, one door is labeled BEV AND FRED HARTLINE, GEOPHYSICS, another AL AND ANN WOODHULL, BIOLOGY, and, down the hall, KURTISS AND COURTNEY GORDON, ASTRONOMY.

Hampshire’s couple’s name plates are symbolic of a growing academic phenomenon: the shared appointment in which a single faculty slot is filled with a husband-wife duo. In such a case, the couple share the teaching load, salary, and health and retirement benefits normally awarded to one full-time faculty member. There are now some 50 shared appointments across the nation, mostly at small liberal arts colleges that are eager to acquire two part-time teachers, often with two separate areas of specialization, for the price of one. Says Evelyn Pluhar, who shares a philosophy appointment with her husband Werner at Grinnell College in Iowa: “Together we offer a wider variety of expertise.”

Before shared appointments were invented, couples in the same academic field found it virtually impossible to win two openings in the same discipline at the same college. Invariably, one spouse (traditionally the wife) was forced to find work in another field or on a different campus. But in 1970 Michael Zuckert, then 28 and a political theorist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., asked for a leave of absence to finish his dissertation. Carleton had a counterproposal: Why not temporarily fill the seat with Michael’s wife Catherine, a fellow political-science graduate of Cornell University and the University of Chicago? Catherine took over and, when Michael returned, began sharing the job. Today the Zuckerts are still happily ensconced at Carleton, dividing a $22,000 paycheck and teaching constitutional law (his) and political philosophy (hers).

Most of the couples feel that an opportunity for both husband and wife to enjoy equally interesting jobs on the same campus more than makes up for having to split a single salary or, in some cases, depending on the course load, a salary and a half. James Carley, 31, a teacher of medieval literature who shares an appointment with his wife Marjorie Woods, 30, at the University of Rochester, has no trouble rationalizing the situation. Says he: “A traditional academic couple—the husband teaching, the wife at home—would get only one salary anyway.” Another advantage of job sharing is the flexibility it affords. One Stanford team, Anthropologists Renato and Michelle Rosaldo, changed from full-time and part-time posts, respectively, to three-fourths of a slot each. The reward: an extra day off per week in which they could relax with their 16-month-old son Sam, indulge their love of opera and restore their sprawling old house.

Acceptance of appointment sharing by colleges is by no means universal. For example, when Peter and Sue Ellen Gruber, both now biologists at Mount Holyoke, were looking for jobs, they applied for every possible combination—his, hers, theirs—with separate letters of recommendation to match. But one time they mistakenly sent a joint letter to a college where only Sue Ellen was applying. Recalls Sue Ellen: “When the dean called me for an interview, he said, ‘I notice that your husband is a biologist too. What will he do?’ All of a sudden, he was backing away. I suggested that he consider both of us, but he wouldn’t hear of it.” Some college administrators feel that they have good reason to be wary. “If you get divorced,” they ask appointment-sharing applicants, “will we be caught in the middle of a custody fight for the job?”

Shared appointments have their drawbacks for the couples. Tenure becomes a mid-career crisis; most colleges refuse to split a tenured post, so each partner must be considered separately. Professional jealousy can erupt between the sharers. Says Courtney Gordon: “You have to be noncompetitive in terms of your job—and have a very strong marriage.” Another problem: it is virtually impossible to leave the office behind. The Grubers, for example, agreed initially that there would be no shop talk at meals. But after “a number of silent dinners,” they gave in, and have never regretted it. Indeed, says Marjorie Woods, the joint interest in a job “takes away a lot of the pressure and strain. It’s always nice to know you’re working with a friend.”