DUAL CAREER FACULTY APPOINTMENTS: A SUCCESSFUL MODEL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), forty percent of short list candidates for twenty-nine faculty openings in science, engineering and mathematics brought an academic partner into the hiring picture in 2008-09. Dual career couples are increasingly common in applicant pools for faculty positions nationwide and not likely to decrease in the future. Offering two positions to qualified couples benefits the institution by increasing the chances of recruitment and retention.

During its first year, UNL’s ADVANCE program developed strategies to take advantage of dual career opportunities. Three academic couples were hired in five departments, increasing the proportion of women in the Engineering College by twenty percent (from n=10 to n=12). The success of the program arises from three key components: a point person to coordinate dual career requests across the campus, flexible faculty appointments that provide a variety of opportunities for the partner, and a funding stream to support the partner hire.

The point person, the ADVANCE Program Director, was created by the provost through the ADVANCE program. The Director communicates with every short list candidate for each open faculty position and with department and search committee chairs across colleges. The eligible partner of the candidate who receives the job offer is brought to UNL to interview, and the faculty of the partner’s target department votes the candidate up or down.

The second component provides a variety of faculty positions, including part-time tenure-track, post-doctoral, research, and professor of practice positions. Professors of practice are primarily teaching positions with three to five-year renewable contracts.

The third component, a funding stream, is aided by the ADVANCE NSF grant for up to three years of the partner’s appointment, providing enough time for administrators to find permanent funding, sometimes through faculty retirements.

At UNL, department chairs have been exemplary in promoting the necessary cooperative spirit for the program to succeed. This model can be replicated at other institutions. Dual career couples are here to stay, and institutions that see them as great opportunities will win the lottery for the best talent available.