Stephanie Jamison and Calvert Watkins share a marriage, a love of languages and academic aspirations.

But for the last year, Professors Jamison and Watkins have not shared a house, a university or, for that matter, even a coast.

She is now a professor of East Asian Languages and Sanskrit at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is the Thomas Professor of Linguistics and Classics here at Harvard.

Jamison and Watkins exemplify a glitch in the academic tenure system known as “The Couples Problem.”

As Jamison and Watkins try to maintain academic careers and a family life, all the while separated by thousands of miles, they are far from unusual. Problems like theirs have weighed on couples—and, increasingly, on university administrators—for 30 years.

In part, the problem stems from the simple fact that the tenure system, designed at a time when it was barely thinkable to have two professionals in one family, was not made for couples.

The system was created for the typical 1950s professor—a husband whose career was supported by a stay-at-home wife who often doubled as an overqualified research assistant.

With just one career to consider, such couples could move from city to city as the professor worked his way up the tenure track.

But as women began entering the academy in large numbers in the 1970s, a new factor entered the great tenure race.

For many couples, the challenge doubled from finding one suitable tenure offer to two. And finding two acceptable tenure offers at the same institution—or in the same state, for that matter—is like trying to find two needles in the same haystack.

Three decades later, the problem continues to plague academic couples.

Solutions are tough to come by, and the problem weighs on universities nationwide.

For decades, Harvard has not been on the front lines of solving the couples problem. But recently, the issue came onto the radar screens of Harvard’s top administrators at a meeting last summer of the University’s deans.

Professors and administrators agree that in order to stay competitive, the University will need to find innovative solutions for this 30-year-old quandry.

THE OLD DAYS