EKU Day 1

Now you know - the school that I am visiting right now is Eastern Kentucky University, located in Richmond, KY. Richmond is very close (15-40 min) to Lexington and the University of Kentucky. So the first thing of note is that there is civilization here! Lexington is a real city, and actually Richmond isn't too shabby either. There are real city things like malls and restaurants and hotels (no B&B horrors). Perhaps there is not quite the unique local touches of New Paltz, though Richmond does have a few blocks of "downtown" with charming old buildings. I also remembered that I came to Lexington recently for a grad student leadership conference, so I have seen downtown Lexington, and it was pretty fun. And I have to say that I do like the Kentucky flavor. There are horse farms and race tracks and beautiful old manor homes. The faculty can join a beautiful country club. Maybe it's from being at UVa, but I like that kind of stuff. Coincidentally I will be going to UVa for the horse race that opens the social season in a couple of weeks. I should buy some bourbon for that while I'm here.

Richmond City Hall

Downtown Richmond

One nice thing about this visit is that I know one of the faculty members here. She was a grad student at Clemson when I did an REU (undergrad research program) there, and has been here for 3 years now. We ran into each other again at the American Astronomical Society meeting this January, where we talked about this job. Who knows, maybe that's part of why I got on the short list. So she picked me up from the airport, took me to lunch, and drove me around showing me stuff. It was so much more relaxing to have a person that I can talk to normally, rather than having to be on best behavior. Of course I realize that she is on the hiring committee too, so I'm not telling fart jokes or anything. If I come here it would be nice to have another person my age, and a girl to boot.

And speaking of people my age, they are actually hiring three people right now! The Department Chair and two faculty (bringing the department to 7 members). So I imagine that there will be another young faculty person too. These are replacement hires, so I did ask if they are scaring people away, and it seems like it was a just a coincidence of different personal reasons. I am the last person of many to visit, so I will find out soon. I think it's good that I'm last so I will be fresh on their minds.

I have already been asking a ton of questions. Some relevant things are that this school has 16,000 students (as opposed to New Paltz's 6,000), and therefore the campus really looks like a campus. They have athletics and everything, though apparently everyone roots for Kentucky more. An interesting tidbit is that they basically just require one paper for tenure, and don't care if it's with your advisor or not. That's much nicer than New Paltz (2.5 papers without your advisor). On the other hand the teaching load is a little higher at 12 hours a semester. And it is mostly a physics department, so I would be teaching physics. It's weird, though, it sounds like nobody wants to teach astronomy, including the astronomy girl I know. She says that those students can be rough on teachers because they hate having to take general ed science classes. But that's what most astronomy teaching is, and what I've done, so that's what I would want to do. Maybe I can end up teaching mostly astronomy if I'm the one willing to do it.

Aerial view of campus

The football stadium (note that one side is metal bleachers)

They do have a nice little observatory here. One of the physics guys is a bit of an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer and has put it together. There are several small telescopes and one ~16" on a permanent mount with a CCD. They do a few public nights, and the astronomy lab students do two observing projects there. They also have a planetarium, but it's not associated with the department.

Observatory telescopes

I asked if they collaborate much with the Kentucky physics department, and she said that they just happen not to, but other departments like chemistry do. I looked at the Kentucky website, and they have a galactic dynamicist I know of and have met there, Isaac Shlosman (it says he's also at JILA at Colorado, so I don't know what that means). And one of UT's galaxy professors, Shardha Jogee, and her postdoc, Fabio Barazza, are listed as being external members of their group. So it sounds like there could be good opportunities to keep in touch with research through them.

After hanging out with her I was pretty tired, but then I went to dinner with another professor and his wife and kids. He seemed like a nice guy and it was mostly just idle chit chat. I also missed another call from New Paltz while we were eating, sigh.

So far I think that I am liking this place a lot more than New Paltz. But I should wait and see what happens tomorrow, I guess. I just got my schedule for tomorrow and they have it broken down into half hour intervals - I have 10 meetings plus lunch, a campus tour, and my talk! I am going to be exhausted. Thank goodness dinner is early and there is nothing after it.