When co-lecturers Patricia Gandara and Gary Orfield teach together, few students notice anything out of the ordinary except on the podium there’s only one cup of coffee, which both of them share.
“They either know that we’re married or they think something very scandalous is going on,” Orfield said jokingly.
Both professors came to UCLA to start the Civil Rights Project here after getting married in 2006.
Now, they say being married only helps them in their work.
“When you can weave your personal life, your professional life, and things you are interested in together, it’s a tremendous combination,” Orfield said. “With us, almost everything works out.”
“Almost everything?” Gandara quickly replied from across the desk. “What’s the “˜almost’ about?”
Although they have strong and sometimes differing opinions, Orfield said a closer relationship also helps when they are editing or critiquing each other’s work.
While they were editing an upcoming article last Friday, both professors worked sentence by sentence on the writing.
“This sentence is about three pages long at the moment, so we’re working on breaking it up so people can actually read it,” Gandara said jokingly.
Gandara and Orfield are not the only married couple that work at UCLA.
Professors Fred and Latifeh Hagigi met when they were 14 at an Iranian summer camp, and moved to UCLA in the 1970s to join family in Los Angeles.
They said that as a married couple, working in different departments at UCLA has helped to keep them out of department rivalries and politics.
Despite this separation in fields, both agreed that every quarter brings a small amount of competition between them.
“Every year, we compare each other’s teaching evaluations to see who did better and what students said,” Fred Hagigi said.
And while Fred Hagigi won the campus-wide Distinguished Lecturer award in 2007, Latifeh Hagigi has been nominated two years in a row.
“I tell her I’ve already won it, it’s your turn now,” he said jokingly.
Despite working on the same campus, the couple said they do not see each other during the day because of varied and busy schedules.
Latifeh Hagigi is a lecturer in Persian, while her husband teaches in the public health department.
However, there is one instance in which Fred Hagigi always comes to his wife’s aid.
“He comes to fix my computer sometimes, because I never know how to do it,” Latifeh Hagigi said.
Both couples agreed that moving to UCLA helped them both professionally and in their relationships.
For Gandara and Orfield, it was a practical decision. The move to UCLA allowed Orfield to bring his Civil Rights Project, founded at Harvard University, to a city with a more diverse population, he said.
It also allowed him to live and work with his wife, who moved to UCLA from UC Davis.
The Hagigis, however, see the university campus as a place to be reminded of young love.
Friends since they were teens, the frequent sightings of students holding hands or kissing on campus remind them of the days when they were younger and first falling in love.
“As we are getting old, there’s a sense that you’re not getting old because of the young people around you ““ it’s vibrant and exciting,” Fred said. “(The atmosphere) is therapeutic ““ it reminds you of the love you’ve had and continued to have.”
Despite the romanticism, the Hagigis said they do not have elaborate Valentine’s Day plans and prefer to celebrate with friends.
“I do not think you need to have one day a year to remember you love someone,” he said. “It should be more unexpected and less planned.”
Gandara, on the other hand, has been planning tonight’s dinner for weeks.
“The meal itself is always a surprise, but he does know it’s going to be on heart-shaped plates,” Gandara said. “Although how I will cook with a full day of classes remains to be seen.”