The Two-Body Problem: Duel-Career Couple Hiring Practices in Higher Education
by Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Susan B. Twombly and Suzanne Rice
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006.
196pp. $23.50
by Jessica Demovski
WANTED: Academic couple seeks two tenure-track
positions at major university in metropolitan area.
While an ideal state for many academics, the opportunities
that fit these requirements are few and far between. Yet, according to the authors of The Two-Body Problem: Dual-Career-Couple Hiring Practices in Higher Education, university administrators
are seeing an increase in the number of academicians in search of this type of situation, and should expect that figure to continue to
rise.
The Two-Body Problem’s authors Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Susan B. Twombly and Suzanne Rice report that at universities across the country, 35 percent of male and 40 percent of female faculty are partners of other faculty members. These figures, coupled with the competition among schools to hire the best candidates and then—perhaps just as importantly—retain them, demonstrate that it’s no surprise that about 80 percent of the administrators interviewed admit they’re concerned about the two-body problem, primarily because they see it as an important recruitment and retention tool.
Yet when the authors, all professors in the University of Kansas
Teaching and Leadership Department, went in search of information about how schools accommodate dual-career academic couples, they found no large-scale policy studies. Instead, the research seemed limited to a few journal articles and book chapters, much of which was geared toward assisting the couple, rather than the institution.
The Two-Body Problem, then, sets out to give university policy makers information about the issues surrounding the hiring of dual-career academic couples, including its history and increasing relevance in today’s academic communities. The book also highlights the various benefits (morale, retention, recruitment) and drawbacks (fairness, legality, autonomy) of accommodation policies, whether they are formal, written procedures or only long-standing practices.
Administrators and policymakers will also find suggestions—from the questions that may need to be addressed to the various people who may need to have a say in their answers—about how to develop and implement an accommodation policy. While couples (whom the authors define as both spouses and unmarried partners, heterosexual and same-sex) may find various pieces of The Two-Body Problem interesting, the book’s core audience is the employer, not the employee.
The Two-Body Problem’s research centers on surveys sent to and interviews with the chief academic officers of institutions that are
members of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and concentrates on examining the course of action when
the initial hire is a faculty member, rather than an administrator. Of the 617 public and private schools that are members of AAC&U, responses were received from 360 (or almost 59 percent) of the
survey’s recipients, which the authors see as a “fairly representative sample compared with the AAC&U population” (16).
Although institutions of varying type and size were examined,
The Two-Body Problem’s focus is on larger schools, with separate, briefer sections dedicated to the concerns of smaller schools.
Set up as case studies using the pseudonymous universities
described in Chapter 3, the book’s five central chapters discuss
“formal approaches” to hiring dual-career academic couples.
Each begins with a scenario about a dual-career academic couple,
then describes the university’s hiring policy, critiquing its “perceived” strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, one of the approaches is accommodating the
“accompanying” spouse by offering a split or shared position.
Chapter 6 defines the terms “joint,” “split” and “shared,” which
are often used interchangeably, yet the authors describe some
concrete distinctions, particularly when it comes to salaries and
benefits. The chapter further elucidates Wildwood College’s
policy, which allows couples to share a single position, citing
both its strengths (greater faculty diversity) and weaknesses (having to share a salary).
The benefits and drawbacks of that most desirable and unlikely of situations for couples—the creation of tenure-track positions as part of an accommodation policy—receive the fullest discussion. Readers will also find details about how some schools handle the policies’ barriers, from concerns about fairness (should couples be given special treatment) to legal issues and unexpected outcomes, such as the often negative impact on both faculty morale and long-term planning.
The book also briefly discusses how well accommodation policies actually work; because they are fairly new, most policies have not been formally evaluated, although “colleges and universities believe they are effective.”
The case studies and summaries that appear at the end of most
of the book’s chapters are interesting and easily readable, as is
the entire book. The authors are sensitive to their use of language, explaining early on what they mean by words such as “problem” and “couple,” and the definition of any jargon phrases (“leading and trailing” partners, which the authors refer to as “initial” and “accompanying”).
At times, The Two-Body Problem repeats itself; attentive readers might find themselves asking, “Didn’t I just read that?” In many cases, the same points are raised in the introductory section of the book, discussed more thoroughly in the middle section, and finally revisited toward the end of the book, with little significant addition to the information. Although this technique may be designed to assist those who want to read only particular sections of the book, at just under 180 pages of text, the reader is left with a sense of déjà vu.
Although adjunct instructors play a large role in many accommodation policies—offering the accompanying spouse a
temporary, short-term academic position is one of the more common ways universities assist couples—adjuncts themselves will
find little new information here. The book is a better fit and
purchase for policymakers, who may find some thought-provoking suggestions, particularly in the book’s final chapter, about how adjuncts relate to the university community as a whole, not just in relation to the hiring of dual-career academic couples.
Although The Two-Body Problem’s authors began their research in favor of accommodation policies for dual-career academic couples, they now admit to possessing a much more balanced view of the issue and its accompanying strategies, which is what their book successfully presents to administrators.
