Work/Life Balance for Dual Career Faculty Couples

摘要

Dual career faculty couples face a unique set of challenges within the academic world. Whilethese couples face the same challenges as all dual career couples, faculty couples have to alsocombine these normal stresses with special challenges of working as a faculty member. The firstchallenge is the original job search and finding two positions. The next challenge is to bothmake it through the tenure and promotion process. The third challenge is to have advancementopportunities. Along the way, the couple has to work together to develop a work/life balanceplan to provide an environment for each person within the pair to thrive toward his/her careergoals and personal goals. Besides balancing the day-to-day activities of a functioninghousehold, couples must agree on timing for or if they will start a family and advancementopportunities for each.This paper and presentation will discuss our experiences over the last fifteen years related towork/life balance for a dual career engineering faculty couple. We will discuss the variousphases of our careers and different “give and take” situations at those times. We will alsodiscuss the tools and advice that have been extremely helpful to us as we work to maintain ahealthy balance between our work and personal lives. Tips for couples from graduate students tofaculty will be provided.