The Office of Academic Affairs responded to Faculty Senate suggestions regarding equity in spousal hiring by implementing an experimental program for the 2015-16 academic year.
According to Faculty Senate Resolution 13-01, equity in spousal hiring entails “adopting a university protocol for the retention and recruitment of dual-career faculty members” who are married.
Two Faculty Senate proposals on the subject have been brought up within the past few years before LSU interim Executive Vice President and Provost Richard Koubek picked it up during the summer.
Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope said equity in spousal hiring is a two-part process.
The first part of it, he said, involves writing a program by which LSU can hire desirable candidates for jobs in the academic area who may already be married, in a partner relationship or some other permanent settled relationship.
The current proposal includes provisions for heterosexual and same-sex marriages, Cope said.
He said it is increasingly normal for universities to provide for the spouse of the candidate who is currently being pursued. The first step in the spousal hiring policy would allow for that.
Cope said the provost’s office dedicated money for a pilot study to do a few such short-term hires.
The second half of the program will address faculty who are already working at LSU.
“It is somehow inequitable to hire spouses who have never been here or given any service to LSU as new recruits, but to make no provision for the spouses of people who are already here and who have served for a long time,” Cope said.
He said the problem with the provisional spousal hire model is it depends on chance.
A person who is married before life at LSU has a greater chance getting a double job for himself or herself and their spouse, Cope said, whereas a person who gets married after arriving does not have any chance currently of equity hiring.
The program will extend the same benefits to spouses already employed by LSU as new spousal hires.
Theatre Department faculty members John Fletcher and Alan Sikes were one such couple who dealt with the effects of a long-distance romantic partnership when hiring season set in.
After dating five years as graduate students at the University of Minnesota, Fletcher got a job offer at LSU in 2005, while Sikes took a teaching position in New York.
Though their union was not recognized nationwide at the time, their domestic partnership was treated as a marriage in Minnesota.
Fletcher said they agreed to try living at opposite ends of the country for one year and move in together afterward.
Six years after years of trying to find a place together, a position opened up in LSU’s Theatre Department, Fletcher said.
He said he withdrew himself from Sikes’ hiring process so Sikes could get the job on his own merit. Though he said there was no LGBT discrimination in the hiring process, spousal hiring in general at LSU was difficult.
“I know other couples, heterosexual couples, who have had to wait like 11 years looking for a place together,” Fletcher said. “If they’re in the same field, it’s hard.”
Sikes, a Faculty Senate member, said he thinks the timing of the decision to implement spousal equity policy, which occurred over the summer, reflects the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states. He said sometimes universities choose to implement policies that may create a public outcry over the summer.
He said he thinks the program could set a precedent for LGBT couples.
“People thought the Supreme Court was likely to legalize same-sex marriage, so it was certainly on the minds of the Faculty Senate back in May,” Sikes said.
Fletcher said equity in spousal hiring has been an issue for heterosexual couples as well as same-sex couples because of the lack of guarantees.
“It’s hard to move across the country when you don’t have a guarantee that your spouse is also going to be able to findsomething,” Fletcher said.
He said savvy universities and colleges take into account the crucial part spouses play in a candidate’s choice and make provisions for the spouse.

Gallery • 11 Photos

Abigail Smithson

University Professors of Theatre Dr. John Fletcher (left) and his partner Dr. Alan Sikes (right) pose together on September 13, 2015 at the Greek theatre.