Hiram

Downside to location: Hiram is a "village" with a college of 1000 students, a post office, police station, a couple hundred houses, a corner store that mainly sells beer, and a church. No bars, no restaurants, no public schools, no off-campus coffee shop. One stop light. I recommend you "Google Earth" it to see size.

Upside to location: The campus is pretty, feng shui is pretty good, and Cleveland is close (40 minutes to downtown without traffic jams, which are a rarity). Although the college doesn't do all that much to market itself as a Cleveland school, in effect Hiram is an exerb (sp?) of Cleveland, and is about 15 minutes east of some fairly posh and growing suburbs. Quite a few of the faculty live in Cleveland or Akron (also 45 minutes away) or Kent (smaller and not as lively, but the closest big research library 20 minutes away). And there are sizeable Amish communities very close by (about 10 minutes in fact), which translates into fresh produce, interesting cultural friction (nothing is more fascinating than watching Amish teenage males playing deer hunting video games in a nearby WalMart supercenter at night). Cleveland's cultural opportunities are dealt with on this forum on another thread.

On the student research thing: It's pretty legit, funds are readily available for research assistants, sciences in particular seem to have a lot of student-faculty research going on. Standards for this work, I think, are reasonably high, but the OP is probably right in suspecting that faculty research is encouraged only to a point. It's mainly a culture of teaching.

Downside: Faculty salaries are very low, 39th out of 40 in comparable size schools in Ohio for asst. professor salaries, for instance. School emerging from big deficits but appears to be recovering, judging from much higher recent enrollments (most revenue is from tuition). Almost no secretarial support (I think a couple of departments have half-time people) and somewhat behind in technology for teaching. Travel funds for conferences are also woefully behind the curve, with an average annual allowance being about $400.

Upside: The place is incredibly congenial, virtually no infighting/intrigues, mostly-transparent tenure deliberations, super nice deans, and cost of living is low. Supportive is the major adjective that comes to mind. Most departments are extremely flexible about courses offered, content, research agenda, etc. Untenured faculty can apply for summer research funding of up to $2500, and some $1000 awards are given each year. Scheduling also seems to be pretty flexible. If you're really into teaching smart-in-a-raw-sort-of-way undergrads (most of whom will turn up in your classes more than once), want a place with light but pretty flexible expectations for research, Hiram is a good place.

On students: Certainly not snobbish, most are first-generation college, but a decent number are "of means", at least that's the impression I get. Tuition and fees are above $30,000. Admissions accepts about 85% of applicants, so it actually isn't very selective. The S in SLAC, in this case, stands for "small." The college seems to attract sensitive students who have bombed out of one program or another (typically a giant public insitution in an urban area or post-crisis teenagers) but who then get it together at Hiram and become academic monsters. Most majors have a pretty rigorous senior paper requirement which adds to the culture for student research. Kids of whatever major are usually down with faculty suggestions for crazy activities like class trips, and ready to dive into anything that seems interesting. Perhaps that's a function of the academic calendar, which includes two 3-week courses (yup, teaching four hours a day for four days a week).

Teaching load: Most people are on a 3-3 track, but in fact it breaks down to 2-1, 2-1, with 2 courses taught in a 12-week semester, and one in the three week. Most people are fans of the calendar, although people in the sciences and mathematics are a little less fond. Lots of faculty do off-campus programs in the three week and the bureaucracy is quite permissive of taking students to whatever domestic location without much paperwork. Taking students abroad takes more preparation, however. Since it is a teaching-centered place, tenure committees will send two observers to new faculty classrooms twice a year, and faculty conversations are almost always about teaching. The writing program is fantastic, led by an excellent and dynamic memoirist (Joyce Dyer). Anyone, even in the sciences, who is considering interviewing at Hiram would be well served by doing some investigation of Joyce, the writing program (mostly embedded in the first year curriculum), or both.

Departments prefer for faculty to start contributing to the general education program, which includes writing intensive first year colloqium and seminars, in their second year if possible. This, of course, starts one on the road to advising (always deferred until the second year, but it gets hot and heavy after that), and do be aware that there is plenty of coddling of students in that regard and high institutional expections.
In the classroom itself, you're likely to get enthusiastic learners whose potential lack of knowledge is usually more than made up for by their eagerness to tackle problems of virtually any kind.

Interdisciplinary interests are always a plus. There are only about 60 full-time faculty at Hiram (although apparently there is a hiring blitz this year, something more than 10 positions being newly created?) and there is an interdisciplinary requirement for graduation. Every one of the masters program courses is interdisciplinary and team taught.

For interviewees: Everyone at Hiram is on a first name basis, including students with faculty. It can be a little wierd at first, but that's how it is. (Sorry if you are proud of your newfound doctor-dom!) James Garfield, the former president, was a Hiram alum, and knowing something about the history of the college is a good conversation piece. People are, like in most places, proud of what they have at Hiram. Unlike the city of Cleveland, Hiram doesn't seem to have problems with self esteem, and is pretty good at what it does: works in generally small classes and especially with individual students to produce students who usually go to graduate school. Again, mentioning the writing program or an interest in teaching beyond your narrow specialization, desire to teach collaboratively is a big plus. Expressing interest in taking part in campus activities of any kind (going to sports games, advising a club, contributing to periodic symposiums on global issues like Darfur/torture/the grand liberation of Iraq) would be a plus. If you have done anything remotely related to study abroad, probably a good idea to bring that up as well. Faculty are mostly liberal, but a few conservatives are closeted here and there. Lots of young and older faculty, and the tweeners are now moving into leadership positions, so it would be an interesting time to get a job at Hiram. Faculty goverance is also big, but I wouldn't dwell on it overly much at the interview -- who ever got a job by saying they love sitting on committees?

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