Northwestern professors Richard Kieckhefer and Barbara Newman heard rumors that they were having an affair.
“Someone saw us having breakfast together,” Kieckhefer said. They were attending a conference at Stanford University.
Conference attendees were unaware that Newman and Kieckhefer were actually married. The pair is one of many married couples who teach at NU.
From driving to work together to adding perspective to each other’s classes, NU professors who are married to their colleagues say sharing a campus is convenient and even fun.
Kieckhefer and Newman said they discuss their respective fields often. Both medievalists, Newman focuses on the English side of the subject, while Kieckhefer’s classes are more religion-based.
The couple met at NU in 1981. Kieckhefer attended Newman’s lecture at a job talk, an audition-like speech that potential professors give before they are hired.
“Part of the partnership of our marriage is the working part,” Newman said.
Mathematics Profs. Eric Zaslow and Lizzie Burslem said sharing the drive to campus is one of the perks of working together.
As busy parents of a 15-month-old son, they arrange their schedules so that they can carpool to work. They also make sure their classes don’t overlap in case one of them has to go home to tend to an emergency.
Zaslow has been at NU since 1998, but this is Burslem’s first year here. They met when Burslem was a graduate student and Zaslow was a professor.
They said their shared subject interest strengthens their bond as a couple.
“We understand each other’s language,” Zaslow said. “The language of teaching undergraduate math.”
But theatre Prof. Lynn Kelso and her husband, biomedical engineering Prof. David Kelso, don’t teach similar subjects.
David, who is currently teaching a study abroad program in South Africa, came to NU as a professor about 13 years ago. Lynn came in the early 1990s and began teaching storytelling and children’s theater. Five years ago, she became an adviser for theatre students.
Even though their fields of study differ, Lynn and David said they enhance each other’s teaching methods. For instance, Lynn said she taught David a storytelling exercise that could be used to integrate a group of American and South African students.
Profs. Jacob and Phyllis Lassner also said their different perspectives and backgrounds enrich their knowledge and research. Jacob, who teaches in the history and religion departments, said the book he published would not have been the same without his wife’s influence. Phyllis is a professor in gender studies, Jewish studies and the writing program.
The Lassners taught at separate universities in Michigan until they both were offered jobs at NU in 1993.
Phyllis said she thinks more universities are becoming receptive to hiring professors in pairs.
“It’s great to introduce my husband to my students as ‘the other Prof. Lassner,'” she said.
Reach Lia Lehrer at [email protected].
