The partnership, known as the Metro New York and Southern Connecticut Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (MNYSC HERC), is the latest and one of the largest pieces of a nationwide network designed to overcome the twin challenges of promoting diversity of faculty and staff and accommodating dual-career families in academia.

The web-based search engine includes listings for all faculty and staff jobs at all member institutions and is available at no charge to anyone seeking employment in higher education. The MNYSC HERC is headquartered at Columbia University in New York City.

"St. Francis College is delighted to partner with other institutions of higher learning in this new web recruitment venture," said St. Francis President Frank Macchiarola. "Our Small College of Big Dreams eagerly anticipates sharing in the diverse applicant pool this large group of colleges and universities creates. This project will also spur an ongoing exchange of ideas between institutions that has already begun with the creation of various MNYSC HERC standing committees."

"Job seekers are also well served by this high-profile site. Those relocating to the Metropolitan New York/Southern Connecticut area will enjoy the corollary benefit of finding a job for their spouse on the robust MNYSC HERC site."

The job opportunities now available through this central resource will help a wide range of applicants seeking to gain employment or transfer within this network of colleges, universities and research laboratories.

Columbia University, New York University and Yale University, who over the last year and a half have taken the lead in creating the consortium, hosted the launch in Columbia's Low Library.

In attendance were St. Francis President Frank Macchiarola, Columbia's President Lee C. Bollinger, New York University President John Sexton, Yale Deputy Provost for Science, Technology and Faculty Development H. Kim Bottomly and Chancellor of The City University of New York (CUNY) Matthew Goldstein, among other higher education leaders, all of whom underscored the potential of this resource to help such institutions recruit and retain a diverse and stellar workforce.

"Diversity is an essential value in an academic community. But achieving it requires a serious commitment on the part of colleges and universities," said Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger. "With the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium, a successful series of grass-roots collaborations among institutions of higher learning now has become a truly national network of job banks, of immense service to the Academy as it seeks to attract and retain diverse faculty, researchers and staff."

"Replacing competition with collaboration, the nation's leading universities and research laboratories have joined forces to create a resource that is of benefit to all," Yale Deputy Provost Bottomly added.

"Over the next year CUNY plans to hire close to 200 new full-time faculty across the University. HERC will play a critical role in our recruitment effort," noted CUNY Chancellor Goldstein.

Although the metropolitan New York and southern Connecticut area is home to more than 130 accredited academic institutions, until now no resources existed that provided a comprehensive listing of open higher education positions in the region. The centrality of job postings and regional resources, as well as the website's ability to accommodate dual-career searches, distinguishes the MNYSC HERC from other employment websites.

"The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium gives us a new way of using technology to solve problems that are difficult for individual institutions to solve on their own. It is just one example of the way universities are developing a new array of instruments and programs to address the career issues and the work-life problems that are part of contemporary academic culture," said Jean Howard, Columbia's Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives.

As academic departments strive to recruit and retain the most sought after talent, departments are regularly confronted with the challenge of finding professional and academic accommodations for spouses and partners. A 1996 survey of universities nationwide estimated that 80 percent of faculty members have partners who are employed professionals.

Data show that dual-career families in which one spouse is offered a new job or a transfer to a new geographical area often are unable to make the transition without securing a job offer for his or her spouse. The so-called "two-body" problem is particularly acute for women in science. Sixty-two percent of women with science PhDs have husbands who also have science PhDs, while only 19 percent of men with science PhDs have wives with science PhDs, according to one recent study.

The keynote speaker at the official launch, Andrea Davies Henderson, Research Director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, said the dual-career dilemma usually affects women more than men, because of compromises made while finding a new job or moving to a new location without one. Sparked by her experience as a San Francisco firefighter, Henderson's research on gender and the workplace offers practical recommendations to employers seeking to recruit and retain highly qualified people, particularly women. Relationship-friendly job banks such a HERC are high on her list.

Columbia, together with NYU and Yale, are funding the initial start-up expenses and ongoing coordination. Member institutions will be responsible for uploading all job postings. The benefits of HERC membership include being featured prominently on HERC's website and having an unlimited number of job postings that reach job seekers directly with email job alerts based on user profiles.

About HERC:

The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) was developed as a collaborative in response to the challenges of recruitment and retention faced by institutions of higher education. MNYSC HERC members include:

Adelphi University
Barnard College
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brooklyn Law School
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Columbia University
City University of New York
Fashion Institute of Technology
Fordham University
The Juilliard School
Long Island University
Manhattanville College
Marist College
Marymount Manhattan College
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Molloy College
Mount Sinai Medical Center
Nassau Community College
The New School
New York University
Norwalk Community College
Pace University
Polytechnic University
Pratt Institute
The Rockefeller University
Rockland Community College
St. Francis College
St. John's University
St. Joseph's College
Sarah Lawrence College
Southern Connecticut State University
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Stony Brook University
Teachers College
Union Theological Seminary
United States Coast Guard Academy
University of Connecticut - Stamford
Vassar College
Wagner College
Weill Medical College of Cornell Univ.
Western Connecticut State University
Yale University
Yeshiva University