As a rule, Harvard professors with tenure do not accept appointments from other universities. Generally speaking, no incentives could persuade professors to make a move--neither more money, nor subsidized housing, nor a chaired position can do the trick.

But if a university offers tenured positions to both Harvard professor and spouse, the other school just might find itself with two new faculty members.

At least that's what happened to the masters of Mather House, the Herlihys. After spending more than a decade at Harvard, Lea professor of Medieval History David Herlihy and his wife, History Lecturer Patricia A. Herlihy announced in January that they will be leaving this summer for two tenured positions in Brown University's history department.

"Patricia's career was the decisive consideration in our decision to move," David Herlihy says. "She has not had a tenured position at a major American university, nor even a tenuretrack position. This is what she was trained for, and this is what we both wanted her to have."

Herlihy says that Brown's offer was even more enticing because he thought it was unlikely that his wife would be offered a tenured position at Harvard or another college in the Boston area in the near future. "We've been here for 13 years and nothing has happened so far, so when this opportunity came along, we had to take it."

But cases like this one--where one academic relocates for the sake of a spouse's career-have become more and more common in recent years.

For example, Robert and Nan Keohane left Stanford University for posts in the Boston area--Nan Keohane became president of Wellesley College, while Robert became a professor of government at Harvard.

And last year, Associate Professor of Government Stephen Holmes, and his wife, Assistant to the Dean of the Faculty Nancy Maull, left their Harvard jobs for the University of Chicago. There the husband-wife team snagged posts as a tenured professor and as an assistant to the president, respectively.

"If you are both academics, it is going to be difficult. Both parties have to be willing to compromise--the interests of both must always be taken into consideration," the Mather House master says.

Recruiting Factor

But the recent rise of two-career families has caused problems not just on the personal level, but for Harvard's faculty recruiting efforts as well.

In a draft of a report to the faculty, Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence says that the two-career families are one of the main reasons why Harvard is finding it more and more difficult to persuade stars from other universities to make the move to Cambridge."[One] factor of importance is the two-career family. With increasing frequency this new fact of academic life complicates the appointment-making process for Harvard and for other universities," Spence writes in the draft.

"Two-career families are less mobile; joint career and location choices are more complex," the Spence report concludes. "Anticipating and trying to alleviate future stress, two-career families will try to make choices of jobs and locations that present reasonable opportunities for both spouses. Some will plan ahead, sometimes quite far ahead. They will make joint decisions that are neither individual's first choice, viewed narrowly from the standpoint of the job and the environment....Moving has higher personal costs for a couple when both work."

In response to the trend toward dual tenure appointments, Phyllis A. Keller, associate dean for academic planning, says that Harvard does try to help academics' spouses find jobs on an informal level. "We try to be helpful in providing information and contacts to the spouses to help them relocate, both for academic and non-academic jobs."

Keller says that for spouses seeking academic jobs, "We don't have any formal way of going about this, but we have lots of interconnections with other schools. Sometimes it does work out, especially at the non-tenured level; it gets much more difficult if they are looking for a tenured position."