A long day at work today.  I have to spend a good solid bunch of hours on the night shift, so they feel loved.  However, my enthusiasm for spreadsheets dimmed when the sun went down (aka after the fifth hour), and so in lieu of a lunch break I'm going to have a milkshake.  In good old Cookeville, Tennessee.

Cookeville, TN

Campus Look - 7

Campus Feel - 7

Town - 2/9  (town itself gets a 2, but its proximity to other coolness merits a 9)

School Size – 10,321 (92% white, 93% from Tennessee)

Student:Faculty Ratio – 18:1

Faculty - 500

4BR 3BA – $240,000

Comments:

So.  It's a decent looking, decent sized school with some modest accolades from various and sundry surveys.  It has no theatre degree program, though you can get a combined theatre/English or theatre/education degree.  One theatre faculty, who looks a little - er - well, let's not make fun of him.  I'll just say he uses Celtic font on his pink online resume, and has an unfortunate haircut.  BUT - he did direct The Diviners, a play written by an alum of my college, and I find that cool.  Like we were fated to be coworkers, or something.  His list of recent plays has a few old standbys but also a few riskier selections in it, so ok.  Perhaps I could deal with being involved in this little theatre project.

Or, perhaps I could pursue a law degree, which still remains a(n ever more distant) possibility.  Knoxville has a law school, as does Nashville.  We'd have to live halfway between each, and we'd both have something of a drive . . . but, you know, I'd be a totally rich lawyer and then we could blow a hundred bucks on breakfast at IHOP on a regular basis, which I think would render me a widow as my husband would die and go to heaven.

There are like seven non-white people at this school.  I prefer a little more spice in my daily sauce, but beggars can't be choosers, and they do have some cultural diversity clubs that we could become active members of.  And we would be in spitting distance of 3 big TN towns - Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.  We could live halfway between Cookeville and any one of those towns.  Whether we would or not would depend on what I end up deciding to do with my life, and did you notice that Countdown to Decision 2009, The Rest Of My Life seems to be ticking a little more loudly this month?

Speaking of ticking, my lunch hour clock is ticking down.  Time to dive back in. 

Things aren’t looking good for the I Drink Your Milkshakers over here in NC.  The recession means that a lot of schools have frozen hiring, which does not bode well for soon-to-be-graduated PhD candidates.  But, what the hell, it ain’t over til the fat lady sings and she’s still warming up her vocal chords, so I’m going to keep on keeping on with this series and cross my fingers.  Last time I mentioned we’d be doing The OC for our next installment, but, well, I lied.  We’re instead going to enjoy a Strawberry Banana Split Hot Fudge milkshake in . . .

Johnson City, TN

Campus Look - 6

Campus Feel - 4

Town - 4

School Size – 11,000

Student:Faculty Ratio – 28:1

Faculty - 550

4BR 3BA – ranges widely, but around $275,000

Comments:

I could live here.

A large part of the appeal of this school is its proximity to our families, I have to say.  It’s 2.5 hours from the one set, and 4 hours from the other – a lot closer than we are now.  But it has some other things going for it.  It’s a nice size, I think.  It’s in a lovely area of the country, if not the most prosperous town.  It has a real focus on Appalachian and bluegrass music, which is right up my alley.  It’s a little bit conservative for my tastes, and a bit unsophisticated – a recent incident of a fraternity dressing up in black face at a Halloween party resulted in a flurry of Letters to the Editor of their student newspaper, which told me a lot about the student population (most were angry that the frat was punished . . . ahem.)

Per Wikipedia, Johnson City is currently ranked the #10 "Best Small Place for Business and Careers" in the USA by Forbes, and #8 "Best Place for African-Americans to Retire" in the USA by Black Enterprise Magazine, which is a nice surprise, given its relative lack of diversity in the population.  It is a little economically depressed, but has some pretty cool music festivals and a great deal of outdoor activities.  The school system here looks pretty good – they all meet AYP for No Child Left Behind, but the result of that is there seems to be lack of focus on the arts.  In their five year plan I found no reference to arts in schools at all, and not a lot of dollars spent in this area.  But that’s the state of the country at this point, and at least Johnson City has good graduation rates and high scores on standardized tests.

Ignore the pile of laundry behind him.