At Penn, his husband gets benefits

People come to Penn for all sorts of reasons. Some cite the top-notch academics. For others, it's the urban location.

For Rob Carpick, it was health insurance for his husband.

Carpick - who got married in Canada in 2003 - will join the faculty in the School of Engineering and Applied Science in January.

Like all professors, Carpick will receive employment benefits. And although his marriage is not legally recognized in Pennsylvania, his husband will get them too.

Carpick, whose specialty is nanotechnology, will take with him millions of dollars in grant money.

At his old university, his husband was basically restricted to a gym membership and a library card, according to Eric Trickell, director of Wisconsin's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Campus Center.

Carpick is leaving the engineering physics department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison because it does not offer substantial employment benefits for faculty members' same-sex partners.

The Wisconsin state legislature has forbid the university from offering domestic partner benefits, making Wisconsin the only "Big Ten" university not to do so. Faculty in straight marriages there receive full benefits for their families.

"It affects professors and it affects janitors and it affects secretaries and it affects students. And it's not fair - it's wrong, it needs to change," Carpick said of Wisconsin's policy.

He will join Penn's department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.

Carpick's decision shows that faculty "perceive Penn as a place that is hospitable for LGBT employees," according to Bob Schoenberg, director of Penn's Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Center.

Penn has offered domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples since 1994, the year after a University-appointed task force recommended their inclusion in Penn's policy.

These benefits are the same as those afforded to spouses in heterosexual marriages. In order to receive them, the faculty or staff member must sign an affidavit and provide documents that substantiate the relationship, like a joint mortgage.

As of July 1 of this year, about 90 university employees were taking advantage of these benefits, said Terri Ryan, a spokeswoman for Penn's Division of Human Resources.

Domestic partner benefits are not just an issue of equality, but of staying competitive with other universities in faculty hiring, Ryan said.

And it was enough to seal the deal with Carpick.

Colleagues at Wisconsin say they'll be sad to see him go.

"It's unfortunate that he's chosen to leave," said Michael Corradini, Carpick's former department chairman. "We wish the policy was different."

Trickell said he thought other professors may emulate Carpick and that if enough do so, it might spur the University of Wisconsin to action.

But one university's loss is another's gain.

Sampath Kannan, an associate Engineering School dean, described Carpick as an "exciting experimentalist in all areas of engineering."

Kannan, who himself is taking advantage of Penn's domestic partner benefits, acknowledged that while Penn's benefits were an attraction for Carpick, "from our point of view it's his research and his teaching credentials" that qualified him for the position.

Carpick, too, is eager to get to Penn, which he called "a forward-thinking place."

Now that Carlos Chan - Carpick's partner - is covered by his husband's health insurance, he will no longer need to get benefits from his job as a Wisconsin campus chef.

And as soon as they get to Philadelphia, Carpick said, Chan is planning to explore all the culinary options the city has to offer.

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