Married with students

Academia draws married couples working at the UW A couple times a week, UW linguistics professor Clarissa Surek-Clark will stop by an office in Savery Hall that isn’t hers. She’s there to talk or grab a quick bite to eat. The office belongs to her husband, Sam Clark, a professor in the sociology department. These two professors are just one of many couples employed by the UW. As one of the state’s largest employers, the UW is bound to attract couples, just by virtue of sheer numbers. But Clark said it’s more than that. It has to do with meeting others with common interests in a workplace setting. Clark first met his wife in high school in eastern Oregon when she was an exchange student from Brazil. Clark, who was born in Kenya, was also new to the school. “It was kind of two people, who were from somewhere else, finding each other,” Surek-Clark said. They were each other’s “first big loves,” she added. After the school year was over, she went home to Brazil where she finished high school and began a law degree. The couple kept in touch by letter and phone, but at a couple dollars per minute, contact was expensive. Surek-Clark returned in 1991 when Clark was a junior in college. They married seven months later in 1991. She was 21 and he was 22. Twenty years later, they are still married and have three children. Clark said it was fun to be married as an undergrad, but the couple kept busy attending multiple schools. Clark came to the UW in 2005 to work in the sociology department studying demography and HIV in Africa. For a while, Clark commuted between the family’s home in eastern Oregon and the small apartment he kept near the UW campus. When he was offered a position at a competing university, part of his retention offer was a faculty position for his wife. Positions for spouses are something that happen, said Rhonda Forman, assistant vice provost for academic personnel. But they’re all handled case-by-case at the local level. Clark said it is no surprise to him that higher education draws couples. “In academia it’s a very normal thing for young people to meet in college or graduate school and often in a class, so they’re interested in the same thing,” he said. Bruce Miller, website manager and senior policy analyst for the UW Human Resources Administration said that while it’s less common for staff to be married than faculty, there are benefits from the university that appeal to couples. From access to the IMA, on-site childcare, and employee benefits, there are many services that draw staff, Miller said. Despite being in different academic fields, Clark thinks they benefit as a couple by knowing how the system works. It allows them to understand each other’s work and be supportive. To Surek-Clark, it made sense to marry someone in academia. “When I was younger and I was in graduate school, I was always surprised thinking somebody was pursuing a Ph.D. in linguistics or African studies and they were married to a firefighter,” Surek-Clark said. “It would be very awkward because I wouldn’t know what to say to the person.” But Surek-Clark has no shortage of things to say to her husband. They have academic discussions and debates a lot, Surek-Clark said, mentioning a recent conversation they had about the power dynamic and political climate in South Africa. This also includes talking shop, Clark said. Clark will give his wife grading tips and she’ll give him teaching tips or advice on how to implement clickers into his classroom. Both professors said the aspect of the job they most enjoy is working with the students. It’s about having a positive impact on the world, Surek-Clark said. “I think we feel like we’re pretty in synch in that regard,” she said. “It’s kind of beneficial because we’re kind of working toward the same goal even though we’re doing different things in different ways.” Their teaching impact goes beyond the UW. Clark’s studies often take him to South Africa, where his research is based. There, Surek-Clark teaches pidgin languages of South Africa. While Clark is in South Africa approximately three times a year, Surek-Clark only goes on the long trips during the summer, staying for about six weeks. “I don’t have a research line or research funds so I piggyback on Sam’s frequent flyer miles,” Surek-Clark said with a laugh. Surek-Clark often brings their three children to spend some of their summer there. Academia is a good field for people with a family because of the flexibility it offers, Clark said. Surek-Clark said there are always things hanging over their heads, from assignments to conferences to grades. But day-to-day, they’re able to attend morning recitals or take time to stay home with a sick child by working with each other’s schedules. Even with the flexibility, it can be hard to manage five people’s schedules, they said. Surek-Clark said some of that has to do with how spread apart in age their children are. Their eldest is a sophomore in high school and their youngest is in kindergarten. Still, Surek-Clark thinks having professors for parents is an asset. Often the children will travel with them or meet the graduate students their father works closely with. “They have a rich life of traveling and seeing different people and seeing young people coming to our house,” she said. “They kind of see that as their path, they kind of will have to pursue college and do something themselves.” Even on a campus of more than 40,000 people, it’s a rare day when the husband and wife don’t see each other. Sometimes one will take the bus and the other will drive, but they’ll often meet up at the end of the day to carpool home. Or they’ll walk to the club or the Ave to grab lunch. Since they first shared a home office in graduate school, they’ve been the type of couple to spend a lot of time together, Surek-Clark said. “We’re kind of a lot in each other’s business,” she said. “[But] we don’t seem to mind too much.” At this point in their lives, the pair wouldn’t consider working at separate schools. “This is the ideal,” she said. “This is our dream situation that we both work at the same place. “It’s a great thing. We understand what we’re doing. We understand the demands of our jobs [and] we try to be supportive.” Reach Features Editor Sarah Radmer at features@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @sarahradmer

Married with students

Disruptor interrupts Psych 210, professor and students chase man on to Red Square

2025 Seattle and King County primary election endorsements

UW mechanical engineering students are now required to pay $250 quarterly fee to participate in department-affiliated RSOs

College Inn Pub reopens under new ownership