By Rebecca A. Doyle
If you are an 18-year-old student away from Mom’s mashed potatoes and free laundry service for the first time, life can be difficult.
But if you are the spouse or partner of a new faculty or staff member at the U-M, you may have had to uproot your entire family, leaving behind friends, a home and perhaps even your own career.
Making the transition smoother and reducing the associated stress is the focus of a new series of workshops designed for spouses and partners of new faculty members and staff who have recently moved to the Ann Arbor area.
In as recent orientation session, participants were briefed on such nuts-and-bolts issues as where to park downtown, finding items and brand names they are used to, locating library services and finding cultural opportunities for children.
Most also are interested in career possibilities either at the University or in the area. Workshops on career planning and transition, job skills, and employment at the U-M are planned for this month.
Anita Adhikary, whose husband, Gary, is a lecturer in anesthesiology, is interested in furthering her education. A former aide in a special education classroom in New York City, she would like to earn a teaching certificate in elementary education. Her family, originally from Nepal, spent time in England before moving to New York.
“I need to learn what is required to teach here in Michigan,” she says. “But we are also buying a house, and I think I will have to wait.”
Most orientation participants were not in a hurry to find employment. They all felt a need to learn more about the area and to settle a little bit before reaching into the job market.
Colleen Dowd Kollman, whose husband, Ken, is an assistant professor of political science, spent five years in Chicago before coming to Ann Arbor. She has a master’s degree in marketing, and says she may begin a job search sooner than most others. Even without children, the move to Ann Arbor is stressful, she notes. “Change is always difficult.”
Change is particularly difficult for those families with dual careers, notes Jay Rathbun, especially if both have academic careers. Rathbun is the faculty counselor in the Faculty and Staff Assistance Program, and has counseled many dual career couples. Placing a spouse in an academic position is extremely difficult for most universities, and dual career couples in academia often face a particularly hard period of adjustment when one gives up a career so that the other can advance.
Some participants came from areas larger than Ann Arbor and were concerned about resources in the community. Still others came from much smaller communities and wondered how they will find their way through everything to the right resources.
But all shared a common desire to meet people in similar situations, to network and find out about both the University and the Ann Arbor area. A bus tour of the city, which was part of the orientation, began that process.
The sessions are sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs-Personnel and are free to spouses and partners of faculty and staff new to Ann Arbor.
Scheduled workshops, all at the North Campus Commons, are:
Oct. 6, 1:30–3:30 p.m., Career Planning and Transition, Southeast Room.
Oct. 12–14, 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m., Job Skills Workshop by Janotta, Bray & Associates, Center Room.
Oct. 19–21, a repeat of the above workshop if warranted by registration.
Oct. 26, 9:30–11:30 a.m., U-M Employment Orientation, East Room.
For more information, call the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs-Personnel, 763-1284.
