If a half-hour drive to work seems like a long commute, imagine taking a seven-hour plane ride. This may seem implausible, but for some professors it is a weekly routine. Whether they have two jobs or a spouse with a job in another state, airlines have replaced carpools for some Brown professors.
These kinds of commutes are becoming more and more common in academia, according to Carolyn Dean, associate dean of the faculty. The world in which the husband works and the wife makes dinner has been replaced with one of dual career couples, she said.
Professor of Sociology David Meyer flies back and forth from St. Louis every weekend, a seven-hour flight each way. Meyer and his wife moved to St. Louis in 1999 so she could take a position as the academic vice president of Fontbonne University; she now works as president of a Lutheran high school association there.
Meyer said he has grown accustomed to the trip after six years and sees it as a regular commute now. Before moving to St. Louis, he lived in Willimantic, Conn., where his wife was the social provost at the University of Connecticut. Back then, he drove 50 miles each way, but he prefers to go by plane - or "flying bus" as he calls it - because he can get work done during the flight. He also said the commute is worth it, because he loves teaching at Brown as well as the students and his colleagues.
Professor of Political Science Philip Hopmann has been commuting to Brown from Washington, D.C., since 1998. He has a situation similar to Meyer's - his wife works at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He flies back to his house in Rockville, Md., three weekends per month, and his wife flies up either to stay with him at their condo in Providence or to meet him in New York to stay with their son on fourth weekend, he wrote in an e-mail.
Both Meyer and Hopmann said their commutes were only possible since their children were grown up.
Professor of Classics Kurt Raaflaub commuted with his wife to Washington, D.C., between 1992 and 2000 because he had another job there. He and his wife were "on loan" from Brown to be the directors of the Center of Hellenic Studies, a Harvard research institute in Washington. For the first five years, he only taught occasionally at Brown, but after 1997 he spent half his time teaching at the University.
From the beginning, both he and his wife decided they were only going to commute for a few years. They wanted to keep their apartment at Brown, and they felt it important to keep a rotation between the roles of teacher and director.
Raaflaub said that while the travel itself was not a problem because of direct flights and the availability of staff or graduate students to pick him up, it was difficult in winter months because snow storms always seemed to hit on the days when he was traveling.
Although Hopmann also flies up from Washington, he would prefer to take the train if it were "more reliable and less expensive," he wrote. Like Raaflaub, Hopmann said that travel delays were the most frustrating part of his commute.
One of the perks, according to Meyer, is having huge blocks of time when he's available to students. When not in St. Louis, Meyers is on the Brown campus and stays in a nearby bed and breakfast. He said this is most helpful to undergraduates, as he can normally meet them in the afternoons and evenings after sports or student activities. Even when he is in St. Louis, he said that he is accessible to students anytime. Everyone has constraints, he said, and his is not that unusual; he just has a different type of schedule.
Hopmann also finds that he can focus on his administrative and faculty duties in Providence by staying in his office into the evening and saving his research for when he's in Maryland.
He also said that being in Maryland "allows for uninterrupted writing of my books and articles." Washington is an ideal location for conducting political science research, he said, which he was able to do as a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Raaflaub found that the most difficult part of having two positions was having all the responsibilities of a faculty member at Brown and an administrator of a research institute. "I was constantly switching sets of concerns," he said.
The University wants faculty to be able to balance teaching and research, Dean said. In cases such as Raaflaub's, it is great when faculty can bring what they contribute elsewhere back to Brown, she said.
