Married English professors blend love and learning

In Lehigh’s English department, two professors share more than just passion for the subject they teach. 

Growing up in neighboring small towns in western North Carolina and attending graduate school together at the University of Missouri, professors Bob and Stephanie Watts were married long before beginning their careers at Lehigh together in the early 2000s. 

Now, as Bob teaches poetry courses and Stephanie Watts teaches both fiction and nonfiction courses, the couple continues to write their story together while allowing one another to pursue their individuality. 

Bob considers Stephanie Watts’ favorite poem a good metaphor for the way he and his wife work together. 

“Back when we first started dating, she told me that her favorite poem was ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ by John Donne,” Bob Watts said. “So I immediately set about to memorizing it, so I could use it to woo her — eventually successfully.”

The poem describes lovers as the hands of a compass. Although they are always connected, moving when the other moves, they are separate. These two individuals can be just as connected while being their own people.

“I just thought that was such a glorious metaphor for a good relationship,” Stephanie Watts said.

Although he had not heard of this poem before, Bob Watts was glad to be introduced to it. Despite its 17th-century language and syntax, he managed to devote the poem to memory with ease.

“I was very motivated,” Bob Watts said.

Of course, as poetry is the professor’s area of expertise, Bob Watts said in addition to the motivation of gaining his future wife’s approval, the poem’s meter and pattern of rhyme certainly aided his ability to recite it.

The Wattses believe whenever you work with someone whom you have a close relationship with, it’s important to figure out a balance between home and work. Stephanie Watts said they aim to separate their home lives and work lives as best they can. She described mastering this balance as a “real talent,” explaining that it doesn’t always come easy.

“It is a challenge,” Stephanie Watts said. “I won’t pretend that it’s not. But, we both have some of the same interests, and we even have some of the same students, which is lovely. We have some of the same goals for the program and also in our lives, so it helps us to stay balanced.” 

Their shared passions — both within the English department and outside of work — help make the search for this balance easier. 

In fact, the English professors were so successful in their balance between married life and professional life that Stephanie Watts’ former student, Gianna Sottile, ‘25, had no idea that the two were married before a friend mentioned it to her.

“I just assumed, ‘Oh, they have the same last name,’ and just moved on with my life,” Sottile said. “Professor Watts would mention her husband in passing, and I guess I just never took the time to put two and two together.”

While she may not have been able to pick up on her professor’s relationship to the other Professor Watts within the department, Sottile did learn a lot about Stephanie Watts both as a professor and a person during her creative writing class last semester.

She said she was inspired by Stephanie Watts’ kindness and her joy for modern literature. She said, before Stephanie Watts, she never had a professor who was so invested in what she wanted to say. For Sottile, Stephanie Watts made a positive, lasting impact on not only her collegiate experience but also her professional development.

“It radiates off her, truly, that storytelling is her lifeblood and that she wants to share it with as many students as she possibly can,” Sottile said. “(Stephanie) Watts seemed to take a genuine interest in my writing, and after the course ended, I was surprised to find emails from her still in my inbox, inviting me to readings, writing opportunities and even encouraging me to share my work.”

While working alongside your spouse may present its challenges, Bob and Stephanie Watts exemplify its benefits.

“I think it’s cute,” Sottile said. “You definitely have to really love someone to think to yourself, ‘Let’s take this job together’ and commit to it.”