Long story short, I got invited to interview at a regional university in a really unsafe part of the state. I don’t want to give too many details, but this city has had one of the highest crime rates in the country for the past thirty years and the murder rate is pretty high. I was advised that if I was offered the job, I should seek housing outside of the city that the campus is located in and avoid sticking around after dark. That really doesn’t help because due to scheduling and the time change in the fall, I would be commuting in the dark. For context, I’m a young female who is barely 5ft tall and it does give me some pause about being in the area full time. I know I’m lucky to have been granted an interview in this insanely difficult market. However, would I be amiss if I put my safety first and declined?
Since people were wondering; I’ll just put it out there and say it’s located in Gary, Indiana.
Comments
Interview. See if you feel comfortable with that commute. A job, is a job, is a job in this market.
With urban campuses, some are somewhat separated from the city and heavily patrolled. One of my alma maters had more deputized officers than the city it was in.
Other urban campuses are just some random buildings in the middle of it all.
I see nothing wrong with taking the interview so you can actually get a feel for the situation. How far is your department to parking, etc.
I’m sure you could stop by their dept of public safety and discuss with them.
It’s your choice whether you want the job. I’m sure there are plenty of female faculty and students. Your post history suggests you’ve been on the market for a few years. What are your options?
As for crime rates, it can be misleading. High crime but is it random or are people involved in drugs and gangs the victims?
Never waste an at bat. You will potentially learn things in this interview that will serve you the rest of your career.
What country? The answer to this will be very different if you’re in, say, Germany vs US vs Brazil.
When you interview, ask about the campus security. Is there a program to escort people to the parking area? Do they have security phones throughout the campus? Are there security cameras around? Are there colleagues with the same schedule as you who could walk with you to the parking area? Etc.
Ask to talk with other potential female colleagues about their experience and recommendations.
Crime rate statistics are notoriously unreliable because the victims of crime might not be random strangers but rather rival gang members, especially in urban settings. Ask other faculty there whether they live near the campus and see if that starts a conversation about safety.
It’s a little old, but it may be worth reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/Indiana/comments/12t2u0v/is_gary_actually_as_dangerous_as_people_say/
Before I got to the bottom I was like, hmm, Gary, East St. Louis?
I spent two years at ND for grad school and South Bend honestly isn’t the best town either. Like there were some parts of the city that were downright sketch and one of my grad colleagues had like 2 different murders in his apt. complex that year.
I’m a guy so I’ll preface with that, and def. try to avoid sketchy areas. Some things operating in your favor:
You don’t have to live there. It wouldn’t be a terrible commute from even Valparaiso as long as you don’t mind some winter driving or can throw classes online if the weather is really bad.
You can drive to campus and don’t need to rely on public transport.
I teach a lot of late classes (ending after 9 pm) and I think every semester there is a student that is sorta sketched out by the dark. The students usually leave in a pack and I feel a young professor could pretty easily tag along.
Campuses are often, and certainly here too it seems, kind of isolated from the community.
Daytime is much different than night. I lived in an impoverished community in a state and during the day it seemed totally fine to hang around town go out to lunch. Lots of eyes on the street. After dark, ehh, a fair amount of sketchiness. I learned that one of my students was killed in town one evening a few years after I left.
Anyway I think there are a fair amounts of pluses for this job. Despite the poor rep of Gary, I think there are a decent amount of pluses that make this a better job than even some more “ideal jobs”. Like I’m not sure I’d be more inclined to live and work at Yale University in New Haven, CT, than a commuter gig in Gary.
Anyway good luck on making a decision and congrats on the job!
I’ll just put out two cents and say: I don’t think “a job is a job.” Not all jobs are good jobs. Where you live and work is part of your life. You only get one life and there is only so much of it. I would approach this holistically and realistically. If quality of life in a given place is low… and that’s important to you… then trust your gut. Academia trains us to think that our value is low and we should be grateful for whatever we get. You are, however, allowed to say, no, I value myself more than this, sorry.