Partner hiring requires more legwork, from start to finish, than any other kind of faculty recruiting. Even after both sides have said yes — the academic couple and their new departments — your job as leader of the hiring process is not done. Because now come the negotiations.
All sorts of details have to be ironed out: contracts, salaries, start-up agreements, work assignments. At this stage of the process, political and procedural mistakes and ignored details can still derail a partner hire, not to mention hurt the couple and undermine your programs.
In recent months, I’ve been focusing the Admin 101 column on partner and spousal accommodations. My aim here is to balance the considerations of people, politics, and logistics, since those factors can pile up even when a partner hire proceeds smoothly. Part 1 of this series focused on how to plan for dual hires, while Part 2 was on how to deal with latent or overt opposition (often stemming from past recruiting disasters or fairness issues). Now let’s turn to how to treat the partners when you are nailing down the details of their contracts and appointment letters.
Treat each partner as an independent player. Sure, the initial reason you considered a second hire was because that person was the partner of another academic you were looking to recruit. But, as I have argued, it’s important to de-emphasize the partner label and assess both candidates on their own merits. That holds true when contract negotiations begin, too.
You want to continue to support the independent professional (and intellectual) identity of each partner. That will be the case in practice if the two academics end up in different departments across different colleges and you are coordinating the partner hire with another administrator. But it applies equally if the second partner is in the same department in your own college.
Don’t just assume that what is good for one partner is good for the other. Work to determine their separate needs, such as salary, start-up money, lab equipment, graduate-student support, or really anything.
In this series David D. Perlmutter writes about pursuing a career in academic administration and about surviving and thriving as a leader – whether you are a chair a dean a provost and or any of the positions in between and beyond.
Contract negotiations — especially concerning salary — provide an opportunity to build trust between a hiring administrator and a promising new colleague. That principle applies doubly in a partner hire. Ideally, you can come to terms on salaries in a way that is a “win, win, win” for you and both partners, without engendering hard feelings, breaking the bank, or setting off alarm bells among other faculty members when they (inevitably) do paycheck comparisons. Obviously, salaries vary widely based on field, rank, and position, but the goal should be to have everyone feel that the starting salaries for both partners are reasonable and not anomalous. On the one hand, you should never try to negotiate a lower-than-usual salary for the second hire simply because that person is part of a partner hire. On the other hand, you can’t let a partner end up with a package that ignites envy and strife around the institution.
In this effort, you need to play the role of coach, not bureaucrat or boss. A department chair in the sciences at a regional university told me about a couple he was hiring who kept insisting on “equal” treatment in their contracts. The chair, however, pointed out to them that having the same contract terms would end up hurting one or the other. They had very different service roles, types of tenure expectations, and research foci, and so being fixated on securing uniform contract terms was going to undermine their careers, not propel them. What makes sense for each partner is what makes sense for them as a couple.
Do all you can to separate them — professionally. To earn tenure, not to mention their colleagues’ respect, each partner needs to stand out as an individual. You can build that independence into their contracts by making sure they have distinct mentors and separate teaching and service assignments. You should even advocate a physical distance: Make sure they do not have adjoining offices, for example.
Consider: A dean at a community college said he hired a faculty couple who had insisted on joint appointments on the same campus committees. Years later, the female partner admitted that she and her husband were always seen as “doing stuff together” and appearing as a “micro team” on service work. That perception had undermined her status on the campus.
Sometimes, of course, you will have to compromise and not insist on this ethic of separation. For instance, universities in congested cities may only require faculty members to be on campus a few days a week. Inevitably couples are going to ask for those days to be the same so they can save money and time by commuting together. That’s fine. Also, I’m not opposed to partners team-teaching, jointly leading a study abroad, or going to conferences together. All I’m saying is they should not automatically be placed together on every committee or assigned to the same formal mentor.
In your role — overseeing the dual hire and acting as their “coach” — maintain professional divides between the two without being draconian.
Don’t let a “star” partner fuel jealousy toward the other partner. A major research university in the Southeast hired a true star in a STEM field — huge federal grants, high h-index, the works. The university offered his promising, yet not-at-all established partner a postdoctoral position in another science field. Problems arose when the star began dictating special enhanced terms for his partner — way above what a normal postdoc would get (in terms of everything from office space to stipend). They got what he wanted, but the postdoc experienced blowback, jealousy, and ostracism from faculty members, graduate students, and other postdocs in the partner’s new department.
You have another opportunity for a coaching moment when one partner tries to push a thumb on the scale to secure better terms for the other. That “help” can hurt in the long run. Advise them that they will benefit, both as individuals and as a couple, if they pursue separate contract terms. Make sure they understand that the goodwill of their peers matters just as much as an office with a view of the quad.
Yes, it’s tricky. You are dealing with feelings, relationships, personalities. But emphasize that you want long-term success and satisfaction for both of them, not just short-term material gains.
Follow nepotism rules and anticipate supervision conflicts. Whether your institution is a tiny liberal-arts college or a massive research university, somewhere in its manual of operating procedures are nepotism rules. The wording matters but so do precedent and recent interpretation.
For example, at my university, a passage of our nepotism policy prohibits administrators from supervising their partners. Our policy states: “No person related to an administrator within a prohibited degree shall be eligible for initial appointment to a position in an area of responsibility over which an administrator has appointive authority, in whole or in part, regardless of the source of funds from which the position’s salary is to be paid.” Further, “related” is defined as “within the second degree by affinity (marriage) or within the third degree by consanguinity (blood).” Note that the term or concept of “partner” is absent, but we assume that it falls under the marriage provision.
Similar policies are in place across higher education. That means those of us leading partner and spousal hires have to make sure that one partner does not end up being the supervisor of the other. It helps of course if the two are hired into different departments. Complications ensue when one partner is an administrator, like a dean (whose partner is a faculty member in the same college) or a department chair (whose partner is a faculty member in the same department).
Here’s how we resolve such conflicts at my university: We specify in the partner hires’ contracts who will be their direct supervisors. So if one partner is chair, and the other is a faculty member in the same department, we designate — in writing — a third party (typically the dean or an associate dean) to handle the faculty member’s evaluations and decisions about funding, travel, and the like.
It can get complicated, especially as the partners’ careers progress. However, it’s another reminder to work out everything ahead of time in the hiring contracts, guided by your institution’s rules. Make reporting relationships absolutely clear, and put them in writing.
You’ve no doubt noticed that I have used the word “coach” several times here. I realize that it might seem condescending, even offensive, to aver that two 50-year-old senior scholars need coaching. But I do find it an accurate descriptor of a process in which you are serving as an advocate of what is best for an institution, a program, a mission, and many people.
The hiring contract is a crucial step for the partners to establish professional and intellectual identities in their own right and, thus, win the esteem of their colleagues. Correct wording in both contracts can forestall trouble and encourage success for everyone.
