Illustration: Peter Field

The family of Richard ’03 and Monique Boley Alexander ’05 bleeds Bison blue and orange. The pair met on the track-and-field team as student-athletes. Richard is now a coach for that same track-and-field team. After spells in northern New Jersey and Detroit, the pair returned to Lewisburg in 2010, not long before the birth of the older of their two children.

Like the Millers, the Alexanders find themselves in a situation where one spouse — Monique, who teaches at Slippery Rock University, more three hours away in western Pennsylvania — must commute long distance a few days per week to pursue her career. The decision for Monique to take that job, and for Richard to remain at Bucknell, was difficult, balancing career goals and the best interests of the children. But, Monique says, “If we sit back and look at our lives right now, we’re both doing things we really love.”

Monique warns that two-career, two-kid families can be stretched pretty thin when it comes to child-rearing energy. “The hardest part is keeping up physically and mentally with two kids who just want to play and be loved and need nourishment and don’t want sleep,” Monique says. “But we have mastered most of the hurdles of our schedules. It took a while. We were both very, very tired in the beginning.”