Most people know Aaron Burr, the infamous rival of Alexander Hamilton. Far fewer know his mother, Esther Edwards Burr, whom historian Cokie Roberts described in her book “Founding Mothers” as an “often depressed, almost always exhausted, young woman overwhelmed by her duties.” In one week of journal entries, Esther catalogued an endless stream of guests before lamenting: “No sooner is the house emptied but filled again.”
What role demanded such relentless hosting duties of Esther? Well, she was married to the president of what would become Princeton University.
Opening one’s home and life to the university community has long been expected of presidential spouses. In the 1970s, Marguerite Corbally, herself a spouse of a university president, studied the time demands of the role. Nearly all the women she surveyed described themselves as effectively working full time for the institution, some spending more than 55 hours a week on university duties. Yet Corbally said the common public response was that they “must be exaggerating or they must be incompetent.”
Nearly 50 years later, that attitude still surfaces, evident in the recent scrutiny of Janet Randall, wife of University of Utah president Taylor Randall. It’s been reported that in two years, the university paid approximately $35,000 for her participation in roughly half of the president’s university-related trips. The university has defended her role as an institutional ambassador, yet much of the public reaction echoed Corbally’s experience: Either the labor is exaggerated, or she is doing it incorrectly.
I do not know the Randalls, and this is not a defense of their every expenditure. But having written my dissertation on university presidents’ spouses — and interviewed more than forty women in similar roles to Ms. Randall — I recognize that debates about financial stewardship often obscure a long-standing expectation that presidents’ spouses, particularly wives, provide the university with extensive labor for free while remaining under constant public scrutiny.
According to the most recent American College President Study, 60% of presidential partners at doctoral-granting institutions are unpaid participants in campus activities. One 2011 study found spouses spent an average of 25% of their time on university work, with some reporting as much as 80%. While most receive no formal title or salary, spouses are expected to serve as institutional ambassadors, host events, build community relationships and manage the presidential residence. Universities depend on these contributions. If a spouse does not perform that work, institutions can (and do) hire staff to do it. But if there is any visible compensation for the spouse, people balk.
Most spouses I interviewed enjoy their role and do not want to be paid, but they do want their contributions respected. As one participant told me, “The difficult thing has been the expectation that I would do all of these things without any appreciation shown in return.” It’s “just assumed,” she said, “because you’re a woman.”
This work can also be deeply demeaning at times. Another participant in my study described having to smile through donor behavior that, she said, “would have qualified as harassment under other circumstances.”
The “other circumstances” would be those in which she was not attached to a president and university whose reputations might suffer if she reacted honestly. “But I can’t,” she said, “I can’t even get away with looking angry.”
Like much historically feminized labor, it becomes easy to overlook the real emotional and physical toll behind these contributions. It’s also easy to conclude that spouses should just opt out — but it’s rarely that simple.
When Guy Bailey resigned as president of the University of Alabama in 2013, part of his decision was because of “mistaken expectations” that his terminally ill wife would continue carrying out social duties tied to the presidency. Similarly, in 2018, when Chuck Staben was not retained by the University of Idaho, local criticism focused partly on the fact that his wife, Mary Beth Staben, continued living elsewhere for her medical career rather than fully embedding herself in the university community.
This is the impossible terrain presidential spouses navigate. Participate too visibly, or receive reimbursement of any kind, and people question the legitimacy of the labor. Decline to participate, and the spouse is viewed as disengaged or insufficiently supportive.
Which brings us back to the actual numbers involved. Presidential stability matters financially. Replacing a university president is notoriously expensive, with search firms alone often costing between $100,000 and $150,000 before accounting for costs of travel, disruption, fundraising slowdowns and leadership turnover. Part of what sustains presidents through the demands of the role is a spouse who actively carries a portion of those demands alongside them.
Against that backdrop, a price tag of $35,000 over two years to ensure the involvement of an otherwise unpaid spouse to represent and support the institution doesn’t sound like extravagance.
It sounds like a bargain.
(Liz Day McNaughtan) Dr. Liz Day McNaughtan is a Utah native and professor of practice in organizational leadership at Texas Tech University.
Dr. Liz Day McNaughtan is a Utah native and professor of practice in organizational leadership at Texas Tech University. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees from Southern Utah University and a doctorate from Texas Tech University. Her research focuses on organizational leadership and the gendered institutional expectations placed on partners of high-profile leaders.
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