HERC links dual career couples to campus jobs.

Consider this statistic: More than one-third of faculty in higher education are partnered with another academic. And it probably comes as no surprise that women are more likely than men to have academic partners.

In the sciences, the numbers rise dramatically. Women scientists in academic couples are partnered with another scientist 83% of the time, compared to just 54% of their male peers.

The data comes from a recent study by the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University CA. It demonstrates the need for schools to develop policies to help dual career couples and provide faculty flexibility--if they want to recruit the best and the brightest.

"Dual careers are the number one issue on campuses as to why they're not getting their first place hires," said Nancy Aebersold, director of the national Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC), who is a former dual career director at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

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The Clayman Institute research bears that out. Of faculty who had successfully negotiated a dual hire at their current institution, 88% of the "first hires" said they would have turned down the job offer had her/ his partner not also found appropriate employment nearby.

Aebersold spoke about HERC's role in developing a collaborative approach to the dual career challenge at the Iowa conference touting "New Norm of Faculty Flexibility: Transforming the Culture in Science and Engineering."