On the Stress of Relocating

For a long time I have been a great fan of The Chronicle‘s discussion forums. I have read them for years and have learned a tremendous amount about a number of professional and pedagogical issues facing academics in all sorts of disciplines and institutions. I have even made some friends “in real life” from conversations and connections there.

A recent thread on The Stress of Relocating has gotten me thinking. The original poster writes, “I’m in the first year of a wonderful t-t job,” in a location that “is really not bad,” yet the poster feels “grief and stress about having left my old life behind.”

I have moved a lot in the past 24 years, from a college not far from my family home to a graduate school across the country, through four jobs in three different states as I have moved along the administrative path. I have felt the same “grief and stress” many times, and have mourned for every version of “my old life.” I sometimes envy people who have lived in the same house for 20 years, or who still see their friends from high school, or even who just have a durable relationship with a decent mechanic.

In my role as the person who leads academic hiring at my institution, and who is directly or indirectly responsible for the success of the faculty, I am wondering what steps we can take to ease the stress of relocating for our incoming faculty members. I don’t want to be intrusive, but what can my colleagues and I do to help new faculty members get past mourning their old stomping grounds so that they can thrive here? What has your institution done to ameliorate that feeling for new colleagues?