Pros
• Great Coworkers. Everyone’s super mission-oriented, smart and resourceful. Really some of the most engaging, interesting people I’ve had a chance to work with in my career. • Great Students. The student body is also brilliant, highly engaged and genuinely fun to interact with. • The Campus. The Evanston Campus (and even the downtown Chicago campus) are beautiful. Everything you’d expect from a classically, collegiate environment. • The Benefits. Health, Dental, HSA, + tuition benefits are terrific (esp. for those with children or families to support)
Cons
• The Culture. Very status conscious culture. I was routinely patronized, gaslit and condescended to by select faculty and senior-level leadership. • Work/Life Balance. Senior leaders lean on middle management to work excessive amounts of overtime. Everybody has a constant scarcity mindset, and yet there’s no effort to scale back program scope (lest students wonder where all their tuition dollars are going). • Institutional Priorities. The casual dismissal of the local Evanston community, the benefiting from (tax-free) real estate speculation, and the massive capital projects that have absolutely nothing to do with its mission (even as their staff and student workers are driven to distraction) overall signaled to me an institution profoundly out of touch with its environment. • Compensation. COLA (even in the best of times) rarely made up for the rate of inflation, so you can expect your purchasing power to decrease every year you stay in your job. Promotions will come with a one-time 10-15% increase in your pay, but usually at the cost of more hours.