Timeline for How common is it for universities to create new positions for dual hires?
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27 events
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| Mar 24 at 13:48 | history | edited | David White | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added tags since it was on the front page and the author is clear in wanting a "big list"
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| Mar 24 at 13:07 | answer | added | David White | timeline score: 4 | |
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| Sep 16, 2010 at 10:03 | comment | added | Kevin Buzzard | @Emerton: I just thought I'd remark that my spouse is definitely sufficiently attractive. | |
| Sep 16, 2010 at 0:26 | comment | added | Emerton | ... universities until finally finding one where they both have stable employment. | |
| Sep 16, 2010 at 0:25 | comment | added | Emerton | ... to some extent on their own merits (since if a department is not at all interested in a person, it is unlikely that they will want that person in their department, sweeteners or not). These remarks apply more to permanent jobs; I think that is easier to perhaps get the spouse a temporary job (adjunct, visiting position, ...), especially if the other department is large or has subsantial service teaching requirements (e.g. language departments). But such arrangements are obviously not very satisfactory in the long run, and I have known couples to move through several different ... | |
| Sep 16, 2010 at 0:22 | comment | added | Emerton | I think that it is not uncommon, if one department is very interested in a candidate whose spouse is also an academic, to ask the relevant department if they are interested in hiring the spouse. If the candidate is sufficiently attractive, there may even be offers made to the other department to sweeten things (part of the salary coming from a different pot, or the position not counting towards that departments overall quota of positions). However, I think it is fairly unusual to force the other department to accept the spouse as a hire; in other words, the spouse probably has to stand ... | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 20:57 | comment | added | Marty | I hope to hear some positive anecdotes as well, but maybe a better place to seek this sort of information is on the Chronicle for Higher Ed's forums. They have a section on the 2-body problem there. Any information on a 2-body problem, with one body in the sciences division and one body in the humanities division should be relevant. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 19:10 | comment | added | Theo Johnson-Freyd | Seconding Pete L. Clark, "playing the outside offer game" is dangerous (if your home institution does not make a competitive counter-offer, then it's a bit of a "screw you", and so you shouldn't play unless you are willing to leave for the new school) but can also be essential: many schools will hire at the market rate but do not give "market rate" raises. This is true across the academy, and not specific to math (my knowledge of this type of thing happens to come from talking to professors in non-math departments). | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 15:10 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | @Gerald: this is swiftly wandering off-topic, but: the word "ploy" makes it sound like you think the couple did something unethical. From what you have said, that's not clear: as long as they seriously considered your department's offer, I think what they did is fine. Among colleagues that I've spoken to about this, it is essentially unanimously agreed that nowadays, the only way to maintain something like your "market rate" salary at a job you have held for several years is to acquire outside job offers. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 14:55 | comment | added | Gerald Edgar | One case went something like this. A humanities department wanted to hire a certain woman. They contacted the math dept and ask if we would like to hire her husband. The husband was a top-rate mathematician, so of course we say yes. The humanities department even provided some money for part of the salary. We make an offer to the husband. (Perhaps causing some resentment within our department because of how high the salary was.) But in the end they did not come, they stayed put. Now we can wonder: was the whole thing a ploy by the wife to gain concessions at her existing institution? | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 11:40 | comment | added | Thierry Zell | I doubt anecdotal data is very useful. I've heard many stories of spouses languishing in non-TT positions, sometimes until they moved somewhere else. It appears that some places will shamelessly take advantage of the situation, and the current economy can only make it more likely. But this is only anecdotal (and mostly 3rd hand). | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 11:10 | comment | added | KConrad | I have heard that some humanities departments can be more specific in their job ads than mathematics (typical for us may be "differential geometry", while they may say "such-and-such literature of the 19th century"), which would make it even more important to focus on places which have ads for the spouse than ads for you. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 11:06 | comment | added | KConrad | I suggest only applying to places where the spouse can find ads or where the spouse's work is already represented by current faculty (and write to ask if they are hiring this year). To turn things around, my dept. was once asked by admins to hire someone so a humanities hire could be made. The math prof. had many years of grant support and was close to retirement, so it wouldn't have been a long-term commitment for us. We were told the mathematician was willing to do what was needed for the spouse to be hired and a joint offer was made. (The couple did not come.) You sound younger than that. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 10:56 | comment | added | KConrad | It might help if you could say more about why you are asking this question (presumably you will have no trouble maintaining the spirit of your MO name). Specifically, I wonder if your spouse either has no academic job or is in an unpleasant one rather than, say, is about to graduate from a good school with a strong thesis. Also, are there few jobs advertised only for temporary reasons (e.g., the economy) or is it always that way (e.g., Tuvan studies)? Unless the spouse's work can stand on its own merits, the result is unlikely to be satisfactory if the spouse is seeking a tenure-track job. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 8:02 | comment | added | Andrew Stacey | meta discussion <tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/671/…> | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:35 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | @anonymous: sure, the administration's attitude towards dual hires does vary from department to department, but it varies just as much or more from university to university. If your question is about the math department at a specific university, it might be a good strategy to identify the university so that someone from that place can contact you (presumably privately) and share specialized information. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:32 | history | edited | anonymous | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:31 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | I think some parts or aspects of this question might admit an informed answer which the questioner doesn't have access to - I'm thinking of responses by people like Deane Yang, for instance, to questions of protocol or procedure. So I'm not voting to close. However, since I'm not sure right now whether I think the question is right for MO, I'm not "voting against closing" at the moment. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:27 | comment | added | anonymous | I would say it's certainly a question of interest to research mathematicians (both those who want to get jobs, and those who want to make hires). I would also argue that it's worth asking in a mathematics specific forum, since the ability to push these things through administration may vary quite a bit from department to department. The point about Chronicle of Higher Ed fora is a good one, and I may try there as well. I'll address what sort of answers would be good in an edit. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:14 | comment | added | Andrew Stacey | This isn't a question that is about research mathematics, nor is it one that I expect people here to be able to give a definitive answer to. As phrased, I expect a list of anecdotes from which it will be impossible to draw a conclusion. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:14 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Are you asking for anecdotes, data, or survey results? | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 7:14 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | This question has little or nothing to do with mathematics per se. I think you might get a more definitive response by asking it on one of the fora at the Chronicle of Higher Education. | |
| Sep 15, 2010 at 6:35 | history | edited | anonymous | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Sep 15, 2010 at 6:17 | history | asked | anonymous | CC BY-SA 2.5 |