Layoff questions *updated in OP* - Page 2

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by kittywitty

Can you get the tax rebate if one of the married partners is NOT living there? There's a possibility dh can live part of the week with one of his sisters and commute down here half the week if one of the colleges accepts him. Or he'd have to move out of state and we'd see him once a month-maybe-and we'd stay here where I try and find a job.

The tax rebate is one for your principle residence. If you end up in a commuter marriage and your partner spend several nights away your house is still his is principle residence not your SIL's. How would the IRS know anyway? I would quit sweating this detail.

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by mnnice

The tax rebate is one for your principle residence. If you end up in a commuter marriage and your partner spend several nights away your house is still his is principle residence not your SIL's. How would the IRS know anyway? I would quit sweating this detail.

If he has to go a few nights, I would not tell them. The problem is this would mean I only see my husband 2 days a week. Unless he gets the job 17 hours away. Then I would see him once a month or we basically lose $7600 in the tax rebate and have to sell and it'll be years before we can buy another house (which is a major issue when we have 4 kids and pets). I don't suppose they'd like it if we rented it out for the summer/winter and lived half the year somewhere else?

[possum]

To the OP, .
Academic life is hard, and I hope that a good position that works for your family opens up. Is your husband open to teaching at a private high school? That would also be an option. My husband has been on the circuit after finishing grad school 3 years ago. It's hard, and this year, he has seriously started to consider HS positions as well as college and university ones. There are lots of good, private, academically rigorous HSs. Those positions are just starting to open up, so he would still have plenty of time to get applications in if he was interested.

Originally Posted by ArtsyMomma

In the future - if your Dh wants to teach at a college level as a career - it would be a very wise move to make sure he is 'tenure tracked' before he takes a position at a college (it takes years to become a professor - it's not a job, it's more like a title you earn). There is more job stability and you usually have a union backing you.

Well, of course, a tenure track position would be optimum. The reality is that positions are generally offered as tenure track or non-tenure track. When a professor applies for a job, s/he knows if it is a TT one or not. For a tenure track position to be offered, the college has to approve a position and be able to financially plan for this person to be on their payroll for the next 20, 30 years. In an economy like this, many of the spots where department need a permanent, tenure track faculty member are having be filled with temporary faculty because colleges do not feel okay making that commitment. In my husband's field, it is difficult for candidates with PhD's in hand to get TT positions, and no one with a masters would even be in the running for those positions.

Melinda

[RooRooDog]

For the credit, the home must be your "main home"- defined as a home you live in most of the year (6 months and one day.) It doesn't matter (to the IRS anyway) if your husband doesn't live in it most of the time, I'm sure you feel differently! But he would want to list that as his permanent address for all work/money/tax related documents. As far as I can tell, there is nothing preventing you from renting the house out for less than 6 months a year, but I would be careful. If the renters starting filing tax returns using your address things might get a little iffy- i.e. two different families claiming the same address as their home. I know that the IRS has been looking carefully at all the homebuyer credit forms it receives, as there is such potential for fraud.

Oh by the way, I used to work there (IRS), I don't just memorize this stuff!

[kittywitty]

Thank you so much! We might be able to work with that! We really need that tax credit. Especially now!

Do you know if they prorate it if you move out early. Like 2 years instead of 3 years would it be 2/3 the money or is it all or nothing?

[ArtsyMomma]

Originally Posted by velochic

Yeah, it sounds like they fed him a line of baloney and now he is really getting screwed over. If he were a tenure-track professor, he'd have a rep that he could go to in order to arbitrate the contract, which is usually written to span several years (otherwise, it's not tenure-track, it's contract instructor, as ArtsyMomma says). The process is usually you are hired Assistant Professor and you have about 7 years to go up for tenure. If you have already been with a university for a while you can be hired in as Associate Professor (which is one level higher than Assistant and one level lower than Professor) and have about 4 years to go up for tenure. This is the general rule of thumb. During that time, they can't dismiss you or cancel your contract without cause. If tenure is denied they can renew the contract or not. It can take a decade to get tenure and 20 years or more to actually rise to the level of "Professor". To be a full professor, it is the apex of decades of work (my dh is 54, btw). Some academicians never get there.

It sounds like they told your dh that it was a tenure-track position and they lied about it... that he was hired as an instructor and told he was being hired as an assistant professor. That's dirty, IMHO. I'm so sorry you are going through this. I'd suggest that if your dh wants to stay in academia, to go back for his PhD, and then look for actual professorships with honest-to-goodness tracks to tenure. Otherwise, I'd go for Rosebud's idea and look to teach in high school. Good luck!

Academia is IMO a bureaucratic nightmare, IMO. DP went through an arbitration for tenureship/associate prof position 5-8 years ago. It was a 3 year long battle. He eventually did win (and wouldn't have fought so hard or so long if he wasn't sure he would win). He is 45 and just last week sent in his 'packet' to be put forward for full Professorship. He is on the young side - but has been teaching at the same school for almost 25 years. It is a difficult road - as the majority of people who apply for tenure are denied, and it's the same with each step towards becoming a Professor.

I also think her Dh was probably mislead. There are good schools out there that have genuine tenure tracked positions, but they are harder to find. As school funding gets cut those positions are less available. It's much cheaper for a school to hire an adjunct or a lecturer. They are easier to get rid of when they aren't doing exactly what the school wants. (Binghamton University recently 'let go' a woman who was a lecturer there for 12 years - because she spoke out about some concerns with the basketball team. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/sp...inghamton.html )

[ArtsyMomma]

Originally Posted by kittywitty

Can you get the tax rebate if one of the married partners is NOT living there? There's a possibility dh can live part of the week with one of his sisters and commute down here half the week if one of the colleges accepts him. Or he'd have to move out of state and we'd see him once a month-maybe-and we'd stay here where I try and find a job.

I think as long as he doesn't change his legal address, it shouldn't be a problem. I'm not 100% sure about that though.

[ArtsyMomma]

Originally Posted by kittywitty

If he has to go a few nights, I would not tell them. The problem is this would mean I only see my husband 2 days a week. Unless he gets the job 17 hours away. Then I would see him once a month or we basically lose $7600 in the tax rebate and have to sell and it'll be years before we can buy another house (which is a major issue when we have 4 kids and pets). I don't suppose they'd like it if we rented it out for the summer/winter and lived half the year somewhere else?

I can only imagine what an incredibly hard situation that would be. I think you would have to avoid renting it out though. It may be hard to find tennants who only want to live somewhere for a portion of the year, and you would most likely have to claim the income rental $$ to CYA - which would disqualify you from the credit.

[StarJune]

I guess I don't understand why he wouldn't take his current job part-time and the other part-time an hour away as you mentioned. It seems more desireable than uprooting your entire family or having him 17 hours away. The expenses for these things may balance out the reduced income. Then you could still look for part-time work as you planned.

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by StarJune

I guess I don't understand why he wouldn't take his current job part-time and the other part-time an hour away as you mentioned. It seems more desireable than uprooting your entire family or having him 17 hours away. The expenses for these things may balance out the reduced income. Then you could still look for part-time work as you planned.

Because if he worked part time at this job, he would make ~$4000 a year. If he worked full time on the part time payscale including teaching summer classes, he would make $9000 a year. It's only a 10-20% possibility dh can even work part time at the other job an hour away to teach. And they wouldn't reimburse mileage and having him work half a day here, half a day there (he teaches chemistry-so they require 4 days a week for his class in person here) would be a HUGE PITA. He's diabetic and with that schedule, would have to eat in the middle of class or end up working a split shift where we'd only see him maybe an hour a day anyway. Not to mention the low pay scale and with that schedule I couldn't get a job to help us with no childcare help.

The only part time jobs dh can find around here other than that are at fast food-and they're not even hiring. Our public schools are all massively laying off, even, and we're hours from anything at all otherwise.

We are applying for jobs now and the only thing that we can find that pays more than minimum wage is an hour away and it's a temporary one year position at the post office-with a lot of competition. Other than that, now, we have one good job 3 hours away that we are really shooting for, and then the next closest (we're in IL) are NY, NC, or FL.

[possum]

Where is he looking for job listings?
The ACS will likely continue to have jobs posted for a while. Second round jobs are just starting to open up as the tenure track jobs and long-term positions are filled and leave openings for temporary faculty.
There are also a number of associations that post secondary ed. jobs. Most of those will start to come available in the next month or two. We have found that many of the HS positions - public and private have pay competitive with or higher than college/university pay scales. It can be a long hard transition back and disappointing after going to grad school, but there are lots more HSs than colleges in the US.
I know academia is hard. We're in the midst of not knowing (again for the 4th year in a row) where we will be next year. We have moved 8 hours and 12 hours and lived in 3 homes since my son was born almost 3 years ago. I am ready to settle down. I would love to be back close to family, but we have had to make choices, and my husband has had to take temporary, sabbatical-leave replacement jobs since completing grad school. It is actually much easier for his female friends who complete grad school with him despite their ability levels. In a competitive market, it's even more obvious.
I know it is really stressful not knowing what will be next, but this is really early in the year to assume that there is nothing for him to do in his field. Many jobs for the 2010-11 school year are not posted yet.
Hang in there.
Melinda

[kittywitty]

Thank you. It is hard. Dh actually worked at this college for his first real teaching job, we moved due to health insurance reasons, moved to NC only to miss family, moved near Chicago but that place was terrible (couldn't afford to live!) and then he was offered his old job back. We finally thought we were settled and in a permanent home. We bought our first house...I've lived in more places than years to my life and really wanted stability only to have this happen. It's devastating.

We've been checking Higher Ed Jobs and the Chronicle of Higher Ed and I check individual cc sites for their listings (tedious). It's frustrating.

[StarJune]

Originally Posted by kittywitty

Because if he worked part time at this job, he would make ~$4000 a year. If he worked full time on the part time payscale including teaching summer classes, he would make $9000 a year. It's only a 10-20% possibility dh can even work part time at the other job an hour away to teach.

Okay I see. I thought that it was a 50% reduction or so. Hoping that he gets the job 3 hours away then.

[possum]

Yes, the job search and application process is tedious. It keeps my husband busy from October to March every year .
Here is the ACS job search site. You can look by type of job or by location.
In a past life I was a chemist and worked at a medical school. I had a couple of MS friends who had jobs at the University coordinating labs for undergrads and for med students. They weren't TT jobs, but they were permanent jobs. If you have any universities nearby it might be worth it to look at their general listings to see if there is anything like that open.
Melinda

[kittywitty]

That's a good idea. I've checked all the local universities. About 2-3 years ago, dh accepted a job the day before the perfect one appeared in our hometown at his alma mater for a really great position in the University. That was gut wrenching. They don't open up often at all.

[kittywitty]

Updated. Thanks for your help, everyone!