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It seemed like a nice-enough town on the coast and far enough removed from any major city to not be overwhelmed by them.

We are not big city people, so that could be a plus.

Not sure what the catch is but I could definitely live here. It seems like a lot of the more reasonably priced places on Zillow are in trailer parks?? but if that's what they are they are the nicest trailers and trailer parks I have ever seen.

https://www.zillow.com/homedet...?utm_source=txtshare

Low-key, lots of 'natural' and vegan options just walking around town. We were there just once for our niece's wedding a bunch of years ago. She went to school there and fell in love with the town and vibe and just stayed. Pretty decent music scene from what she described - she sang with a couple of bands for some years.

You can't know everything in advance. Just MHO, but Santa Cruz would be a huge improvement over SC in many respects. Go for it and worry about if you are moving after you are offered the job. You'll no doubt have a chance to check out all these other things along the way.

Santa Cruz is a very "crunchy," liberal town. The vibe is very laid back. There are a lot of aging (as in 60ish) hippies, lots of music, some homeless or camper dwellers, lots of vegan/vegetarian restaurants. It's expensive, like all California coast cities are, but it's not freaking insane SF level expensive. Your salary should carry a nice bump for cost of living increases alone. I'm guessing you're looking between 900K-1M for a nice house there. Politically it's likely to be about as opposite from where you are now as can be, even accounting for the university "bubble" phenomenon.

The campus itself is gorgeous. Trees, primarily oak, doug fir and redwood are everywhere. I don't know what the student profile is for your location (I'm guessing pretty good) but UCSC is fairly competitive for California kids and super competitive for out of state'ers. One key indicator (that they constantly threw at my son when he went there to check it out) is that the freshman retention rate is something like 90%, which is outstanding.

On the downside, there's really only one road in or out (CA17), which runs over the mountains to San Jose. It has portions that are very windy, and can sometimes get backed up. It's only something like 40 miles between Santa Cruz and San Jose but can take much longer to get there than the miles would imply. If there's a crash, forget it. I used to conduct management retreats at a resort just outside of Santa Cruz, and we would always plan at least 2 hours on that road when scheduling flights out of San Jose and sometimes barely made it.

Re: tenure clocks--absolutely you can and should negotiate it if you get to that point. My advice (unsolicited ) is that you talk to the department chair and get their advice. I'm not sure how easily you can pick up your research/service activity and move it. If it were STEM, from what I've seen lots of faculty negotiate a shorter tenure clock but give themselves an additional year (like if you're at year 3, consider yourself to be at year 2) to re-establish their research programs. I'm not sure what it's like in your field, though. But negotiating tenure clocks is not a weird thing to do, especially for someone who isn't early in the process, like you.

I'd be tempted to throw your hat into the ring unless you are 100% sure you're not interested. If you get an offer, you can always go to your current place and ask them to increase your salary or give you early tenure or both....

One other thing - in general California has lots of Japanese, perhaps more than where you are. Mr. SK might appreciate that (as would you, obviously).

I can't vouch for this calculator, but thought it was interesting.

My oldest boy went to college there, so we made a number of trips and I really like the town. I thought I would use my expertise to give you a description, but really, Nina nailed it.

The one thing I would not do, as others have mentioned, it’s do a long commute into town.

Thank you everyone for all these comments! Lots to think about...

And lots to comment on....

Lisa, OMG. Those are indeed trailers... and yes, very nice ones. But OMG that's more than twice what we paid for our house and 3/4 acre lot... oof.

piqué

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Go for it and worry about if you are moving after you are offered the job.

the process of applying for an academic job is ... onerous, shall we say. Just prepping the docs is a huge time commitment, and then the whole process itself takes like 8 months.

So I'm not going to apply unless I know that, if offered the job, I will accept it and happily move.


Nina

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I'm guessing you're looking between 900K-1M for a nice house there.

Oh god. I can't imagine ever being able to afford a house in a market like that. Maybe we could, but it's really hard to imagine from this vantage point.

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Politically it's likely to be about as opposite from where you are now as can be

Yeah, I mean this on its own is a huge draw.

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how easily you can pick up your research/service activity and move it

Sorta easy. No lab. The bigger thing is just the time suck of prepping new classes from zero, which would certainly happen bc of the details of the program.

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in general California has lots of Japanese, perhaps more than where you are. Mr. SK might appreciate that (as would you, obviously).

Yep, we sure would!

I need to do a pros/cons write-up of the job details, the program, what I'd get by moving there and what I'd lose (this is job/career-wise)....

Or, you know, I could throw together the job packet and not put a lot of time into it, and see what happens....

A friend of mine did a move like this, left her position here for a SLAC in the northeast. She was working on a book, and her book was delayed by a year as a result of the job application process and moving....

My book manuscript is due Jan. 1, 2022. If I throw my energy into the job app process, my book gets delayed, and then I don't get the job, I will be screwed.

So there is that.

I don't know why the job search process seems so onerous to you. Does your field have practices that others don't? In mine, you send a cover letter, a "job market paper" that you would give in a seminar, and arrange for letters of recommendation. That's about it. Our first round interviews (at our professional meetings) will be entirely via Zoom. You would fly out to Santa Cruz only if you made it to the on-campus interview stage, which is serious.

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onerous

Required documents:
*cover letter - not a huge problem, I'm good at writing these.
*cv - not a problem
*3 writing samples (this is def. the easiest part, I can use pubs)

These are the documents that will be the big time suck. If it was just writing them it wouldn't be too bad but they each need to be tailored to the program:
*research statement
*teaching philosophy
*DEI statement
*sample syllabus

ETA and this doesn't include the prep I would did if I was invited to a first-round interview, which would presumably happen this semester.

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

So I'm not going to apply unless I know that, if offered the job, I will accept it and happily move.

At the risk of offending you, that's a pretty high bar. I've never applied for an academic position so I have no insight on that, but only applying for jobs that you *know* already you'd want might mean you miss some opportunities that you never thought of, but would be great.

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which would presumably happen this semester

Wow, we must be super slow here. Most of our on campus interviews and job offers happen in March-April-ish. We're on quarters and fall doesn't start until mid-Sept, so that might be part of it.

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

So I'm not going to apply unless I know that, if offered the job, I will accept it and happily move.

It’s good to be fairly serious about your interest in a job if you are going to go through the time and trouble to apply. Not only from your end, but also from the point of view of the people who are running the search where you are applying. Mr Jodi has been pretty frustrated lately with people who have gotten all the way to the finalist interviews, but decline the job when offered, because they really weren’t that interested in the first place, or they were using it to get a better offer back home. They’ve had to fail at least one search because of that, and it can be a colossal waste of time and money.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

So I'm not going to apply unless I know that, if offered the job, I will accept it and happily move.

At the risk of offending you, that's a pretty high bar.

Not at all! this thread is super helpful!

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I've never applied for an academic position so I have no insight on that, but only applying for jobs that you *know* already you'd want might mean you miss some opportunities that you never thought of, but would be great.

The application prep is sooo time consuming. If I were already planning to be job hunting, then I would apply bc I'd be applying to everything that was even remotely relevant/interesting. That's what I did when I went on the job market in my last year in grad school. And when you're already prepping those docs, then you know, just prep a few more versions.

But I have to finish this damn book and I have other writing deadlines as well, so committing myself to creating job docs is not something I want to take on lightly.

[QUOTE=SK]which would presumably happen this semester [/QUOTE]
[quote=Nina] Wow, we must be super slow here. Most of our on campus interviews and job offers happen in March-April-ish. We're on quarters and fall doesn't start until mid-Sept, so that might be part of it.[/QUOTE]

I mean only first-round interviews, not campus visits. First-rounds usually happen in the fall semester... although actually, this job's application deadline is on the late side, so maybe they won't do their first-rounds this semester....

I just saw Jodi's post also...

Yeah, I don't think I want to try to "use" this job application to negotiate a salary bump in my current position. I have second-order connections in the dept there and it would be a bad idea to do that and burn a bridge...

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I don't know why the job search process seems so onerous to you. Does your field have practices that others don't? In mine, you send a cover letter, a "job market paper" that you would give in a seminar, and arrange for letters of recommendation. That's about it. Our first round interviews (at our professional meetings) will be entirely via Zoom. You would fly out to Santa Cruz only if you made it to the on-campus interview stage, which is serious.

I've witnessed the process second- and third-hand, and it varies. Sometimes it fairly simple; in other cases, it's incredibly onerous.

SK, I understand your problem, but it's a balance. You might not know what the job or local environment is like until you apply and visit. And you'll never know if you would have liked it or not. As Michael Jordan used to say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

However, and I will not name a place because I'm guaranteed to offend someone, but if you're pretty sure you'd never live THERE, and the application process is burdensome, then by all means I'd never bother applying.

Mary Anna was going to pass on applying to Oklahoma because she thought I would never go for it. To the contrary, I encouraged her and told her if she got the job I'd move here, and we're both glad she did.