Being married and working together can be a recipe for disaster. But faculty members at UTSC, who live and work together, have shown how combining personal and professional worlds can strengthen relationships.
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Photo Courtesy / Sherini Ramuite
Robin Marushia & Kenneth Welch Jr.
With a penchant for raw oysters, good beer and the great outdoors, Kenneth Welch and Robin Marushia?s relationship developed from their love for ultimate frisbee at the University of California Berkeley?s ultimate frisbee club. In 2009, the couple, then engaged, moved to Toronto.
?I finished my PhD in June and we were [in Toronto] by the second week of July. It was a little bit like being a mail-order bride,? joked Marushia.
?She came with me [to Toronto] so that I could have the job that I?d been looking for,? added Welch. Welch, an assistant professor at UTSC, is a comparative physiologist while Marushia, a research associate and sessional lecturer, is a plant invasion ecologist.
Through working together, Welch and Marushia exchange feedback and ideas on various aspects of their jobs, including teaching style and interacting with students.
?[Working with each other] is convenient and we really do like the fact that we see each other interacting with our shared colleagues,? said Welch. ?Sometimes it?s nice to be able to blend our personal lives with our shared work lives and sometimes it?s hard too. Sometimes you wish you had that separation, but overall it definitely is a real benefit.?
?You really become a team, you understand each other?s goals very well and we try to help each other out,? Marushia added.
Both Welch and Marushia are highly invested in their careers and share hopes of how the university and the Department of Biological Sciences will continue to grow and develop.
However, they realize that working in the same environment will not always be a smooth ride.
?Compromise is [important] because academics are very independent people. People that get PhDs tend to be very independent, so when you have two PhDs together, there?s a lot of that struggle for independence. We?re learning to be a team and not do everything [ourselves],? explained Marushia.
?There?s something to be said about learning to live with someone else. Especially after graduate school, you have very much your own life, you?re concentrating on your own work and studies so it?s a very different thing,? added Welch.
Outside academic life, Welch and Marushia like to cook together and discover local breweries in pursuit of craft beers. A few of Welch and Marushia?s favourite romantic films include When Harry Met Sally, There?s Something About Mary and Judd Apatow romantic comedies.
Dierdre Flynn & Garry Leonard
While strolling in a Scottish field after a James Joyce conference, English professors Garry Leonard and Deirdre Flynn had a lengthy conversation about Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hitchcock and Superman before they even began talking about themselves.
?We probably talked for a long while before we asked anything about each other. I don?t remember saying ?What?s your name??? joked Leonard.
It took a few more years and a couple more James Joyce conferences before Leonard and Flynn?s relationship went from being colleagues and fellow Joyce fans to being married.
Flynn said the marriage has changed her in many ways and has made her a more careful person.
?I?ve become a mother, I?ve become responsible for so much more,? she said. ?I was a single graduate student running around, doing whatever I wanted, so I think I?ve perhaps become more risk averse and more careful with how I commit my time.?
With two young children in the house and a busy work and research life, Leonard and Flynn still make time for each other to do some of the things they love to do most, including watching movies, going out for dinner, and above all, talking to each other.
?Every Saturday is date night, and I love it. We keep it sacred and [always] have Saturday date nights,? said Flynn. ?In between, once a year, we try to go somewhere, just the two of us, for a few days. My favourite is Paris. Garry?s favourite is New York City.?
Currently, the two literature and film enthusiasts are in the midst of working together on a project started four years ago entitled, ?The Pepsi Lectures,? which, according to Leonard and Flynn, is a look into ?the loss of transcendental certitude.?
However, they both agree that working together on this and other projects comes with challenges.
?We can hit a log jam,? added Flynn. ?You can hit these places where you wouldn?t solve problems the same way and so you can?t really see one another?s solutions.?
That being said, Leonard and Flynn feel that their relationship works as a result of their common love of literature and film and their Lacanian perspective of the world. They agree that it would be difficult to determine the nature of their relationship had either one been in a different profession.
?Relationships don?t just take care of themselves and relationships do require tending, more like a garden, perhaps. You can have a gorgeous garden, but then if you say that?s it, it?s done, then it won?t be a gorgeous garden,? said Leonard.
Maydianne Andrade & Andrew Mason
Not only do Maydianne Andrade and Andrew Mason both work in the Department of Biological Sciences, but their research interests often overlap as well. Andrade studies the evolutionary traits of mating, specifically of black widow spiders, and Mason studies the acoustic and vibrational communication of insects and spiders.
?[Our common research interests] means we can talk to each other about pretty much everything. And he always appreciates the politics or the technical challenges of whatever I?m talking about, so it means we can have much more meaningful conversations about work than I imagine possible otherwise,? explained Andrade.
However, Andrade and Mason admit that it can be difficult to separate work and home lives. ?That?s the other side of working together. It makes it harder to leave work behind when you come home,? said Mason.
Andrade and Mason originally met at UTM, where Mason was working on his PhD and Andrade was interviewing to do her Master?s degree, which included a tour of different labs.
Common interests are not limited to research, however. Both Andrade and Mason are self-proclaimed science fiction and mystery lovers.
?He [Mason] can quote the original Star Trek series. I?m not quite as good as that,? Andrade laughed.
Andrade admires Mason?s interest in the natural world, his versatility, and his ability to fix everything from dishwashers to computers. She?s not as big of a fan of his habit of slurping tea.
Mason considers Andrade ?smart and beautiful? and is a big fan of her sorrel (ginger and rum drink), but is not a big fan of how ?disastrously disorganized? her closets are.
Both Andrade and Mason agree that compromise and decision-making are a key to living and working together.
Every year for their anniversary, Mason gives Andrade flowers, with the number of flowers corresponding to the number of years they have been married.
?It?s sappy, but I like it,? said Andrade.
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