Despite distance, professors drawn to IU

Anyone who has driven down I-65 knows the monotony of the long, flat two-lane road characterized by farmland, trashy billboards and bad fast food.

Assistant professor Stephen Selka knows this only too well.

Commuting from Chicago to Bloomington every Monday, Selka says his biggest challenge is finding decent food on the road.

“If I don’t pack a meal, it’s fast food,” Selka said, sighing. “Fast food was fun, of course, for the first couple of weeks.”

But it’s been three years since Selka began making this trek — four hours each direction on I-65.

Selka is one of the many professors at IU who routinely commutes to campus. Selka remains in Bloomington until Thursday night.  During the week, he rents a room in a friend’s house, and on the weekends he returns home to his wife, who is a professor at the University of Chicago.

“We both have good jobs in different cities; it’s a pretty common situation,” Selka said. “Good jobs are hard to come by and are tough to give up.”

Erika Dowell, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council, said this problem is not uncommon at IU.

“Indiana is pretty far removed from other institutions,” she said. “It’s an issue when faculty couples can’t find jobs in the same town ... let alone tenure track jobs at research universities.”

Journalism professor Tom French’s wife works for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, while he is busy teaching 1,000 miles  north at IU’s campus. French resides in Bloomington on weekdays and flies to St. Petersburg, Fla., on Fridays. This is his first year at IU.

“It’s insane a little bit,” French said. “You have to get used to being in two places all the time. I get landscape-jagged.”

Dowell said there are concerns that traveling professors are not as active or as available outside the classroom, but it’s a trade-off.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to have someone here who is a world-class performer or an expert in the field, even if they can’t relocate completely,” she said.

School of Public and Environmental Affairs adjunct professor David Cox agrees. Cox lives in Illinois but teaches at IU on Mondays.

Cox is a practicing lawyer Tuesday through Friday.

He has been balancing work and academia like this for 10 years. To him, the combination is synergistic.

“Because I practice in the areas of environmental and energy law, I can share practical experiences with my students,” Cox said.

These professors credit the Internet for keeping them connected to their students despite separation. Clarinet instructor Eric Hoeprich’s, job is not only eased by the internet, it is dependent on it.

Hoeprich is a professional freelance clarinet player in London, though he teaches courses at IU, making three week-long trips to campus each semester. When he’s not in Bloomington, Hoeprich contacts his students through e-mail and Skype if they need help.

“It gives them a sense of independence,” he said. “It’s kind of a big deal when I come back, and they know that I am going to expect that they’ve done something.”

Cox said he relies on help from his assistant instructors on a daily basis. When necessary, he remains in Bloomington to attend meetings or address concerns with students.

Senior Lecturer of Marketing Ann Bastianelli runs into similar issues. She is a full-time professor at IU and is also an active business consultant in Indianapolis. Bastianelli crams all of her classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she said it makes for very long days, beginning and ending in Indianapolis in the wee hours of the morning or the darkest hours of the night.

Travel costs for these professors can be astronomical, and they said the University does not directly compensate. For many, time will tell whether the situation remains to be worthwhile financially.

 “Every year the head of the department says it is getting hard with money,” Hoeprich said. “I am very realistic. I don’t know how long I’ll be teaching.”

Despite financial and physical costs, the instructors seem unwilling to give up their place at IU.

Cox said he plans to finish up his law practicing days in the next two years and make Bloomington his permanent home.

“IU has enabled me to accomplish all the things that I have in my life,” he said. “When I was given the opportunity to give back, I knew it was the right thing to do.”

Selka said he plans to continue juggling his travel schedule, and continue eating bad fast food on I-65, indefinitely.

“I’ll do it for as long as I can keep it up,” he said.