As students on Grounds emerge from the craze of Valentine’s Day, they may have leftover treats from celebrations with friends or still be wondering who ominously sent them a Uvalentine message. But beyond the flurry of student romance, love is also quietly thriving among various faculty members.
From sharing academic passions to collaborating on study abroad programs, there are many ways in which the relationships between married professors have flourished at the University. Colleagues by day and companions by night, these faculty couples take “bring your family to work day” pretty seriously.
These professors say that working with their spouse provides them with compatible, though unconventional, lifestyles. Kevin Driscoll, Media Studies Associate Professor and husband to Media Studies Associate Professor Lana Swartz, said that he appreciates being with someone who understands the unique demands of being a professor.
“I think being a professor can be a little bit like a strange job … the routines are a little different, and the schedule is a little different,” Driscoll said. “And so it really helps that we both have the same kind of job with the same quirky characteristics.”
Swartz and Driscoll each have distinct academic fields of expertise — Swartz focuses on digital economies from a socio-technical perspective, while Driscoll explores alternative histories of the internet — but they still find common ground in their shared experiences.
For some married faculty, their similar areas of expertise have translated into collaborative professional experiences. For example, Architecture Professors Phoebe Crisman and Michael Petrus now teach two study abroad programs together — U.Va. in Greece, Odyssey in the Anthropocene and a program for the international residence college over spring break in London. Crisman said that she enjoys teaching alongside her husband and thinks the two of them make a great team, despite their different interests in architecture.
“Even though we have the same academic degrees, like exactly the same … we have different interests,” Crisman said. “It's really nice that we have an opportunity to develop a course together and teach it in the summer or over spring break.”
American Studies Professors Stephen Arata and Lisa Goff have also had the neat experience of teaching classes together abroad. They meld their distinct teaching styles to create an engaging, close-knit J-Term in London called “London, the Theatrical City.” Although they love leading this program, the professors did initially go into it with some doubts, according to Goff.
“When you’re teaching … you feel very exposed,” Goff said. “We had been married for 40 years at that point, but we’ve never, you know, interacted in that context, but we were delighted that it went so well, and has continued to go so well.”
Many of these married professors have now intertwined their professional lives as a result of their mutual employment at the University, but several met long before they started teaching. Arata and Goff met when they were undergraduate students at William & Mary while they were taking a class together during their sophomore year.
“We had to [volunteer] to run [the] class, and I volunteered to go first, and he went last,” Goff said. “But when he began to talk … I remember distinctly leaning forward [in] my seat to see who the smart guy was at the end of the table.”
Despite this initial connection, this promising relationship did not fully bloom until the early days of their careers. After graduating from William & Mary, Goff moved to Arkansas to work at a newspaper while Arata set off on a backpacking trip through Europe. Though on separate journeys, the two remained close friends. After Arata returned, he visited Goff and their relationship quickly took off.
They eventually moved to Chicago, where Arata attended graduate school at the University of Chicago and Goff continued her career in journalism. When Arata landed a job at the University, they relocated to Charlottesville.
A similar introduction, Crisman and Petrus first met during their freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University, where they both studied architecture. After becoming good friends their freshman year through taking all the same classes and collaborating on many group projects, things naturally took a romantic turn.
Crisman and Petrus’s coincidentally paralleled coursework pipelined their now-adjacent professional endeavors, which have allowed them to fulfill and share their passion for architecture outside of the classroom.
“All our holidays are spent studying architecture and cities,” said Crisman. “And now our son…is in architecture school. So it's a family affair.”
Continuing the pattern of undergraduate romance, Driscoll and Swartz first met during their masters program at MIT before earning their PhDs at the University of Southern California. As they approached the next steps in their careers, they each applied to a variety of positions — including the same one at the University.
“As it [turned] out, we were both ranked the top two choices for the job,” Swartz said. “[The hiring committee was] like, ‘How about we just hire two people instead of one, since they’re together?’”
Receiving positions at the University not only marked a turning point in Swartz and Driscoll’s journey in academia, but also in their personal lives. With their futures aligned in Charlottesville, the next step in their relationship became clear — to get married.
“[Since] we both got hired at the same time [for] the same job, [we said], okay, fine, I guess we'll get married,” Swartz said.
Though some married professors opt to minimize overlap between their marriages and teaching roles, some of these couples' favorite memories involve forging personal connections with their students, together, while teaching abroad. For Goff, a particular moment sticks out from a J-Term course she and Arata led a couple years ago when they opened up to students about their romance.
“[Our students] actually asked us about our love story, our romance story, [on] the last night of the term,” Goff said. “I don't share a lot of my very much personal information with my students in general, so [it was] nice to have that kind of… personal connection.”
In addition, Swartz and Driscoll recount the joy of watching their children grow up at and around the University. They attribute some of their fondest memories on Grounds to their daughter, Eva, from taking her trick-or-treating on the Lawn to bringing her to Virginia soccer games.
Swartz said there was even a time when Eva attended one of her academic events. Driscoll remembers Swartz passing Eva off to him, almost as if she were a soccer ball, right before Swartz participated in a talk at the Rotunda.
“One of my close collaborators … was invited to give a Rotunda Talk, [and] even though I was on [maternity] leave, I stepped in to help facilitate [a Rotunda Talk] … I remember our daughter was three months old, I definitely was carrying her with me at all times,” Swartz said. “So it’s just neat for her to kind of grow up with U.Va. as part of her.”
Whether they are professionally collaborating, engaging with the student body or spending time with family on Grounds, these professors agree that their shared experiences within the University community have enriched their marriages and their lives.
“To live your life together in this learning environment is just so rich and wonderful,” Crisman said. “It’s like we never left college.”
Read More
Pearl Island Café is the gem of the Jefferson School
By Evalina Caruccio | YesterdayThis Black-owned Caribbean-style restaurant serves accessible and delectable dishes through sustainable methods.
Top 10 ways to hone your inner child
By Sam Saks | 4 days agoTo reconnect with your inner-child every now and then, try these 10 methods that will send you into a reminiscent bliss.
Bringing the University together, one cereal bowl at a time
By Maddie Shaw | 6 days agoSince its founding, the club has sought to bring together the wide demographic of cereal-loving students on Grounds.
