While it can be difficult enough for regular married couples to find employment in the same city, it is even harder for academic couples to find jobs at the same school. But despite those unique challenges, Dartmouth's professor couples agree that their unions are not much different than a non-academic marriage.
When both spouses are in related fields, as is often the case as people with similar interests are drawn together, the job-searching difficulties are compounded. Robert Fesen and his wife Cassandra Fesen, professors in the physics and astronomy department, experienced this firsthand.
When the Fesens came to Hanover in 1989, Robert came as an assistant professor, while Cassandra was to be a research associate at the Thayer School of Engineering and in the physics department. Though Cassandra had a position at Dartmouth, the Fesens were aware that there would not be a faculty position open to her. As a result, Cassandra applied for faculty positions at other schools, eventually accepting a job offer at the University of Texas at Dallas in 1996.
The couple maintained a long-distance relationship while Cassandra was in Dallas for six years, before she quit her full-professor position at Texas and moved back to Hanover two years ago, where Dartmouth offered her a non-tenured professor position in the physics department.
Like any long-distance relationship, the Fesens' experience was a challenging one.
"It was good for Cassandra to do that," said Robert. "She wanted her own career so we had to make concessions. It was difficult in the sense of being apart for weeks or months at a time."
The couple discussed both moving to Texas, but the schools in the Dallas area were not in strong in Robert's field of astrophysics. Although together in Hanover again, the couple is continuing to look for a school at which they can both hold full faculty positions.
Ivy Schweitzer, an English and women and gender studies professor, and her husband, English professor Tom Luxon, are also familiar with the difficulties of finding positions at the same institution. When the couple decided to marry, Schweitzer was a professor at Dartmouth, while Luxon was on a tenure-track position at Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania. Luxon applied for a job at Dartmouth, but the couple had a plan if he was not offered a position.
"If he hadn't gotten the job, he could have stayed at Franklin and Marshall," said Schweitzer. "I had gone down and seen if I could have applied for a job there, or other jobs in the area. There were places I could have worked in Pennsylvania."
Schweitzer added that she unsure of the role her position as a professor at Dartmouth played in her husband's hiring.
"I think my department was as sympathetic to our situation as they could be, but on the other hand, everybody felt that he had to get the job on his own merit," she said. "There weren't any programs or interests on the part of the institution then to have spouses here or to recognize the fact that spouses are here."
Other married academics at Dartmouth feel the attitude towards spouses has changed positively over the years. Bill Phillips '71, a visiting film studies professor, said the College has developed an interest in supporting married couples.
"I think things have changed over the years," Phillips said. "I think the college wants to encourage spouses because they want to discourage losing faculty."
Phillips' wife, English professor Cleopatra Mathis, agreed.
"The administration is increasingly aware that Dartmouth is the only show in town," said Mathis. "I feel the College does have an obligation to support a married couple, when one spouse is employed at the college and one isn't, that often means losing the tenure-track professor."
