The Kennedy School of Government's Stanton Professor of the First Amendment Frederick Schauer just finished his third year at Harvard. In order to secure his acceptance, the University needed to find his wife, Virginia J. Wise, a position. And it did, Wise is now a lecturer on law for legal research at the Law School.

Galison and Schauer are success stories for Harvard. But the University also loses some battles for top names. The Schama case is just one example.

Acting History Department Chair John Womack Jr. says the department has tried to make appointments in the last year, but has either not found appropriate candidates or has not been able to attract them here, because of considerations the recruits were forced to make regarding their spouses.

What seemed to distinguish the Schama tenure battle from others in the recent past is that Schama, not Papaioannou, seemed to be the spouse necessitating heavy recruiting.

For example, Harvard's usual practice would have been to search for a comparable position for Papaioannou at a Boston-area university or medical school, had they wanted to hold on to Schama, which by all reports, they did.

"I would be very surprised if that option had not been broached...this is the way these things are done," says McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History Steven Ozment. "I surmise that the question was brought to the [Harvard] Medical School and there was no interest in that sort of thing."

But Harvard either didn't search, or wasn't able to find a post. And that suggests that Columbia may have made an end-run around traditional strategies of luring big names, approaching Schama's wife before they approached Schama--the real prize.

The offer to Papaioannou may have been the ultimate lure for Schama, a huge international name whose university's zip code is of little importance to either his colleagues or book publishers.

Harvard Medical School professors, for instance, are puzzled as to why Harvard failed to find a faculty position for Papaioannou, who Lan Bo Chen, professor of pathology, calls "very, very good."

"Lots of people at Harvard would love to have her," says Chen. "It should be very easy to create a position for her at Harvard."

"She's definitely Harvard caliber," he says.

Schama says that while the offer made to his wife was a "golden opportunity," he sees the move as an "equal job opportunity" for both. "I'm delighted to be going there and eager to start," he says.

Entering Columbia will not be a completely new experience for Schama. He says he already has many friends in Columbia's History Department, which is much bigger than Harvard's. "It's not like going to a new place," he says.

And Schama's colleagues at Columbia say his breadth of knowledge and interests will be an important asset to their department.

"We're thrilled that he's coming," says Alan Brinkley, a former lecturer at Harvard in history and literature. "There is no historian who does the sorts of things Simon does."