Research, Family Author: Lee Katterman
Susan Verhoek and Stephen Williams have been doing it for 21 years. Andrew and Carol de Wet have been at it for five years. Jane Lubchenco and Bruce Menge did it from 1977 to 1987. And Natalie Adolphi and Andrew McDowell just started it in September.
These married couples-and many more-have been involved in sharing a single tenure-track faculty position in the sciences. Most such arrangements, which also occasionally involve non-married pairs of scientists, generally occur at small liberal arts colleges, but some large research universities have also made room for this practice. The reports from the trenches are that shared or split positions are professionally and personally successful. The obvious hurdles of how to handle tenure decisions, how to assign fringe benefits, and how to live on one salary apparently are being solved to the satisfaction of both the faculty members and the institutions. ...
