Our workload is typically 2/2 and our job responsibilities are 50% teaching, 40% research, and 10% service. We work with UGs and MS students (no CS PhD's here, but postdocs are possible). I really enjoy a job where I can invest strongly in both teaching and research.
UMN Duluth is a medium-sized school with about 11,000 students (~1,000 grads). We have a vibrant liberal arts curriculum with lots going on. CS has ~300 undergraduate majors in our ABET-accredited BS, about 50 in our BA, and about 25 MS students. Engagement of undergrads in research is a core value of our college.
Our college, the Swenson College of Science and Engineering (SCSE) is active in a broad range of science and engineering fields, and there are lots of interesting collaborations and interactions between departments. I really enjoy being part of such a fascinating and fun group of faculty and students.
SCSE students regularly take part in UMN's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), where they work on a research project with faculty for tuition (a scholarship scholarship, if you'll forgive the dad joke). SCSE is also rolling out integrating research in some way into all its programs as a guaranteed part of the UG experience.
Our students come from diverse backgrounds and experiences; roughly 50% are from the Twin Cities metro area (city and suburbs), with another 50% from more rural areas in MN. I've been incredibly impressed with many of the students here at UMD, many of whom are first-gen students.
I feel like I've had a lot of support and encouragement to bring my own ideas and energy to our department; we have constraints, of course, but I feel like people are willing to try new things and always want to do better by our students and each other.
For example, we have made changes recently to streamline our BS program, including working to make our intro sequence more accessible to a broader population of CS students, and easier for transfer students or students with previous experience. We're always looking to make things better.
I feel like that the institution as a whole values family and work-life balance, but I experience that most directly in our department and through our faculty union. Life as a faculty member is busy, but the people I interact with recognize that our personal lives are a priority for most of us.
I felt very supported by SCSE and my department as a tenure-track faculty person, and I found the tenure process to be positive, clear, and friendly, with annual reviews. If we hire you, we want you to get tenure. We will find people to mentor you, and you'll be invited to tenure-track faculty breakfasts, where you'll get to know our accessible college administration.
I love living in Duluth. It's a beautiful small city on a hill at the western end of Lake Superior
-- the "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas". Duluth has about 86k people, with a metro area of about 280k (extending far outside the city and into WI).
While housing prices have gone up here as they have most places, Duluth is still a fairly affordable place to live (relatively speaking). Like cool 100-year-old houses? Got'em. Like newer modern designs? Got'em. Want a condo with a view of the GLOAT (Greatest Lake of All Time)? Got'em.
Duluth is also a politically diverse, but generally fairly progressive city; it's likely to challenge your ideas about what small cities in the midwest are like, if you think of the midwest as "flyover country".
We have a vibrant arts and local music scene: https://duluthhomegrown.org/ ... and for a small city we get some great national acts coming through. For example, Bon Iver played this summer at the Bayfront Festival Park on the shore of Lake Superior.
Given it's size, Duluth doesn't have everything, of course, but we are only 2.5 hours by car or shuttle van (or 45 minutes by plane) away from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, one of the best (IMHO) metro areas in the US.
Now, if you've heard anything about Duluth, chances are it's been in a joke about it being cold. And yeah, I'm not going to lie, it gets cold here. BUT
There is so much amazing stuff to do in the winter in Duluth! Duluth has tons of groomed ski trails, downhill runs, year-round mt. biking (fat bikes with studs rule!), ice climbing, ice fishing, hockey, curling, skating, and so much more...
As the old Scandinavian proverb goes, "There's no bad weather, just bad clothes." People here know how to handle the winter, and -- if you do happen to get stuck in the snow -- strangers will pull shovels out of their cars and help dig / push you out. My point is this: if you know you absolutely hate the cold, OK, maybe you won't like Duluth. But if you're just unsure about what winter here is like, maybe give it a chance... you might find out that it's beautiful and fun.
There's also incredible warm-weather outdoorsy activities too, of course (all that other stuff, just without the snow). After all, there's a reason that people flock to Duluth in the summer. The amount of trails, parks or wilderness, in or near Duluth is astounding -- Duluth has over 200 miles of trails open to hiking, many of which double as ski or bike trails.
Maybe the outdoors isn't your thing. No problem. There are also arts non-profits, several community theatres, galleries, and other venues, museums, a ballet, an opera, a symphony, lots of crafting and other types of indoor activities. Lots of ways for you to plug in and find your people.
Or maybe you like the outdoors, but not the sweaty, exercising kind of outdoors. There's so much to see and do in the woods here, and near the water, and lots of people to do it with if you want.
Anyway, bringing it back to CS... if you think you'd like a half-teaching, half-research tenure-track position in CS at a friendly, mid-sized school in a unique city in a beautiful place, then consider applying here!
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