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[bobocles]

I'm a longtime member posting under a different name.

Anyone familiar with this or with Lexington, VA? What can I expect? Pleasurable job?

Any input appreciated...

[reener06]

I don't know about the institution (much) but Lexington is a pretty area of Virginia, and close mostly to Roanoke, Staunton and Harrisonburg. Of those, Roanoke is your 'big city' and where you'll need to go for a mall, Target, etc. Lexington is a nice town, with a decent downtown, but it's quiet and rural, with little around it. There are great hiking and camping opportunities all nearby, and other decent cities like Charlottesville are  close and a decent day trip place.

I think it depends on if you like rural vs. city. If you can't stand a rural area, either stay away or become friendly with I-81 as you will be on it a lot.

[bobocles]

I don't know about the institution (much) but Lexington is a pretty area of Virginia, and close mostly to Roanoke, Staunton and Harrisonburg. Of those, Roanoke is your 'big city' and where you'll need to go for a mall, Target, etc. Lexington is a nice town, with a decent downtown, but it's quiet and rural, with little around it. There are great hiking and camping opportunities all nearby, and other decent cities like Charlottesville are  close and a decent day trip place.

I think it depends on if you like rural vs. city. If you can't stand a rural area, either stay away or become friendly with I-81 as you will be on it a lot.

Is the traffic on 81 bad? Could one, e.g., commute from Roanoke or one of those places or it would be annoying?

[cgfunmathguy]

I don't know about the institution (much) but Lexington is a pretty area of Virginia, and close mostly to Roanoke, Staunton and Harrisonburg. Of those, Roanoke is your 'big city' and where you'll need to go for a mall, Target, etc. Lexington is a nice town, with a decent downtown, but it's quiet and rural, with little around it. There are great hiking and camping opportunities all nearby, and other decent cities like Charlottesville are  close and a decent day trip place.

I think it depends on if you like rural vs. city. If you can't stand a rural area, either stay away or become friendly with I-81 as you will be on it a lot.

Is the traffic on 81 bad? Could one, e.g., commute from Roanoke or one of those places or it would be annoying?

Roanoke is about 40 miles away. I don't know about the commute, per se, but my few times driving I-81 (n<5, and last observation > 5 years ago) have been non-eventful. Snow in the winter may change this perception.

[bobocles]

Thanks...so anyone have anything about the place?

[prytania3]

VMI is a military academy. If students break the honor code, they get drummed out. I don't know what it's like for faculty but probably pretty good. Non union, however, as VA is a right to work state.

Lexington is in the Shenandoah Valley and very beautiful. Housing is a bit high because a lot of rich people have retired there. There is skiing close by and golf courses. Also, depends on how you feel about living in the mountains.

I-81 looks uneventful, but actually it's one of the most dangerous pieces of roadway in Virginia.

[elsie]

That section of I-81 is particularly bad, I'm afraid. This link describes the traffic problems (http://www.roanoke.com/multimedia/81/index.html). I take Route 11 instead, which is much more pleasant.

The danger is a combination of heavy freight truck traffic and steep grades. The stretch near Lexington is bad because there are a couple of fairly steep grades to the south where truck drivers mistakenly believe that they can pass each other when going up them. The grade becomes too steep, gravity exerts its pull, and the semi is too heavy to generate the necessary acceleration to pass.

[bobocles]

Does anyone have a sense of what it's like to work in a military academy? Are there different sorts of service expected? What do the students tend to be like?

[reener06]

I'm going to second elsie here on I-81 (and prytania). It's also bad b/c I-64 westbound comes into to I-81 right at Lexington. I did a survey of 16 miles between Roanoke and Salem about 8 or 9 years ago and it was not fun. I wore lots of orange vests.

Sorry, I don't know much about the academy. My advisor's father went there, and he thinks highly of it. Some colleagues worked at a nearby college for a few years, and did classes at VMI, but they've been let go since then.

[polly_mer]

Yeah, what about the students?  Who has the scoop?

[carpmaster]

Lexington, at this very moment, is awash in confederate flag controversy.  It is the burial place of Gen. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and Sons of the Confederacy [or w/e they call themselves] turn up there to wave their flag and protest '1st amendment!' when anyone points out the horrible racism inherent in that symbol.

At VMI, faculty and staff all wear uniforms, because they are all officers in the junior militia.  Asst = Lieutenant [?], Assoc = Major, Full = Colonel.  Many of the usual democratic institutions of faculty governance are nowhere in evidence.  Post-tenure review is now in place.

Students are cadets, at least after the first year [when they are referred to as RATS].  They live in barracks, adhere to military discipline, and spend a fair amount of time on military-type training.  They wear uniforms all the time.  They are also tremendously polite, deferential, and respectful, and call everyone Sir or Ma'am.  They can be counted on to drill-march in the annual Xmas parade, sandbag when there's a flood, and vote Republican to about 95%.  Colleagues tell me they're reasonably hard-working, write about as poorly as the rest of america's undergrads, and don't tend to think very critically or expansively.  They do well in engineering-type stuff.

Many of the students go to VMI because all the men in the last seven generations of their families went there.  The school has one of the largest independent foundations [alumni funding] per student of any institution in the United States.   Many of the students go on to military careers, and one particular alumni favorite is to 'buzz' the campus in your f-16 when stationed at the nearby USAF base.

The town has a critical mass of faculty from VMI, many of whom are former military, but many who are also standard academic types.  There is also Washington and Lee adjacent to campus, and its faculty are also open-minded.  The W&L student body is pretty upper crust.  55% of them pay the 50k+ tuition without financial aid; the presence of this demographic characterizes a fair deal of the surrounding locale.  W&L has a $1 billion endowment and sometimes snaps up disgruntled VMI exiles.

The town is sort of notorious for breaking marriages.  Non-faculty spouses find very little to do, and for w/e reason, gossip-able extracurricular wanderings are frequent.  Don't ask me, but that's what everybody told mrs. C.

Roanoke may be 40mi away, but I-81 northbound is a truckers' favorite.  The commute back from roanoke regularly took an hour, even though most of the 48 mi. is 70 mph.  Staunton, to the north, is :30, and there's good Shakespeare there and a quaint downtown.  Charlottesville and UVA are 1:15 away; Richmond is about 2 hours, Washington a bit over three with no traffic.  The nearest airport is in Roanoke or Lynchburg [home of Liberty University, which seems to exert a cultural influence throughout the region.]  Non-Walmart shopping options require a trip to Roanoke or Waynesville [1:00 NE].

If you like outdoorsy stuff, Western Virginia is gorgeous, the trout fishing is some of the nation's best, there's lots of hiking, and a fair fraction of the population really does, as Gov. said last election, prefer to kill their own dinner.  Great parks, great water.

BTW, Lexington is separately incorporated from the rest of Rockbridge County, and locals regularly differentiate between 'city' [pop. 7k] and 'county.'  County is about what you'd expect from rural VA if you were cynically inclined.  In the city, the real estate market is kind of weird.  There's a lot of inventory on the market, but for whatever reason, prices haven't really come down. 

All this is based on a remote view from the W&L campus and some input from 3-4 colleagues at VMI, but I'd dare say that anyone in the know would corroborate.

[aver_prof]

I can't speak to VMI (though I spent a week in Lexington and liked the town. I drove there from the Roanoke airport in the middle of the night in a rainstorm with a zillion trucks and was sweating bullets the whole way. I wouldn't want that commute every day...). I have taught at another military school for a number of years and can say that despite the uniforms and shaved male heads the students here are like students anywhere else: sometimes motivated and sometimes not, sometimes polite and sometimes not. The biggest difference might be that students have tremendous demands on their time and bodies (physical training in the wee hours) that make staying awake and being engaged academically a challenge, and the ones who are seeking a commission sometimes see academics as just a hoop to jump through. On the other hand I've taught some really earnest engaged students who want more out of their educations. It is also strange to have so few, or even sometimes no, female students in class. All this said, there are students everywhere who have tremendous demands of different kinds on them or who only want an education to get a job so perhaps mine really aren't that different. I also have great colleagues, who hold a variety of political and social views, and a good work environment with support for faculty development. I am happy with my choice. While it was strange to work in this environment at first, it quickly has become my normal!

[chomp96]

I have a friend on the VMI faculty who loves it.  However, this person is male, married, Christian, politically conservative, a native of a nearby state, in a STEM field, and was an athlete in his younger days, so he fits in very well culturally; take away a couple of those attributes, and VMI might not be as attractive.

Tenure-track assistant professors are commissioned officers in the state militia at the rank of Major; associates are Lieutenant Colonels, and full professors Colonels (unless an individual held a higher rank in any branch of the US Armed Forces, in which case they retain that rank).  The uniform is a regulation U.S. Army uniform, except the "U.S." insignia on the collar is replaced by a Virginia logo.  Faculty wear the uniform during the day (except in summers, which are non-military), salute higher-ranking faculty outdoors, etc.  However, there are no physical fitness tests, military training, etc. for faculty, as VMI is a state (rather than federal) institution, and most faculty have very little to do with the military training side of the school.

The alumni are extraordinarily loyal, and I recall the alumni giving rate is the highest of any public university in the nation.  The academics are stronger than what you would expect based on the demographics of the entering students, as the discipline often helps their students grow academically more than average.  STEM and military-related fields (history, international relations) are the most common majors.

Student life is spartan, even by comparison to West Point or the Citadel.  For example, students sleep on mats (that are rolled up each day), rather than beds.  The first few months of the freshman year are particularly intense, as "rats" don't become full-fledged cadets until a day-long initiation in late January or early February.  A significant percentage don't last that long.

VMI can be a great place to be a faculty member, or not-so-great , depending on your background and values.

[takapa]

VMI has a very strong academic reputation with entering first year students presenting good SAT and ACT scores.  Although I am hesitate to note a particular "popular" institutional ranking, the Forbes list routinely places it above the likes of UNC Chapel Hill, UC Berkley, Boston U., and Hobart and William Smith (see http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/%20/.  I was through the area a few weeks ago.  I-81 is notable for traffic issues and is currently under construction to add an additional lane in each direction which makes it a bit more dicey than usual, so Roanoke is further away than it seems.