Faculty couple profile: Aaron and Kim Titus
Doctors Aaron and Kim Titus are one of several married faculty couples at HPU. Photo by: Devon Wilkinson
By Devon Wilkinson// News Editor
Twenty-four years ago, Kim Titus was organizing a student mixer for graduate students when she found herself talking to Aaron Titus, a first-year graduate student. After the conversation, the two found that they had very similar interests, similar values and similar views in faith.
After meeting Aaron, Kim knew right away how special Aaron was, but she spoke with hesitation because of the age difference between the two of them. At the time Kim was a fifth-year graduate student.
“I went home trying to figure out who I could set him up with,” Kim said. “I was trying to think of a girl who would have been good enough for him.”
But instead of allowing this to happen, Aaron took matters into his own hands. Aaron began accompanying Kim to a club that she was actively involved in.
On Valentine’s Day of 1994, Kim received a letter from an office in Washington, D.C. asking her to answer the following question to ensure she understood the required material in order to receive her Ph.D. However, the letter was not from an office in D.C., but from Aaron. The answers to the questions spelled out “Will you mar^2y me?” After one year of dating, Kim and Aaron were married.
Both Kim and Aaron are employed full-time at HPU.
“We have a name in the field for when a married couple both have Ph.D’s and who are both looking for jobs in the same location,” Aaron said. “They call this a two-body problem.”
“One of the great things about High Point is that this university it very open to hiring married couples,” Aaron said.
The couple has found many benefits of working in the same location together.
“We understand what each other deals with from day-to-day,” Kim said. “We understand the pressure of teaching classes and we understand the workload that goes into this job.”
Kim mentioned that her and Aaron work late nights grading papers together near the end of the semester.
“It’s a lifestyle,” Kim said.
“We work together to make it work,” Aaron said.
Both Titus’ make it clear that teamwork is the only way of balancing two full-time jobs and raising a family.
Aaron and Kim stay busy with their four children; two biological children and two children they adopted from Mali, Africa. Their children range from the ages of 16 to 20.
While they both have full-time jobs and are involved immensely in the community, the two still find time from what is most important to them – family.
“We make it a priority to sit down and have dinner as a family every night,” Aaron said. “It is our together time.”
Aaron and Kim are looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for their children.
“We are starting to see in our eldest daughter that she is living her life based on the values that we worked so hard to instill in her,” Kim said.
The Titus’ are eager to see what their girls will accomplish in the years to come.
“We’re excited for them,” Kim says.
In the future Aaron and Kim look forward to furthering their careers and traveling more for the purpose of learning.
HPU already considers the students, factually and staff one big family, but couples like the Titus’ make the concept of our HPU family bond even stronger.