Pros and Cons of working at a Small, Private, Liberal arts Institution

​I’ve just wrapped up my third year as an assistant professor. Can you believe it? I almost can’t. I work at William Peace University in Raleigh, NC. We’re in the heart of downtown; campus is a gorgeous tree-filled oasis. It’s a small school; about 800 students, which was the size of my high school. Over the last few years, I’ve had some good and some less than desirable experiences. I thought I would take a moment to reflect on my time at WPU thus far and generate a list of pros and cons of working at a small, private liberal arts university.

PROS

• Connections with students. I highly value having meaningful connections with students and being at a smaller school really facilitates this.
  • Small classes. Smaller class sizes facilitate this even more so! Our “larger” classes are capped at 25, but I’ve had classes with as little as 7 students.
• Being able to advise students academically. I really enjoy this! Advising students is like solving a giant puzzle. (If you know me, you know I love a good puzzle!) And it allows for another way to connect with students outside of the classroom.
• Teaching. Instructing classes is my main job, and I love it.  
  • Teaching lots of different classes. I especially appreciate that I don’t have to teach all of the same classes each semester. In a year I normally teach, General, Cognitive, Learning, Neuroscience, Research Methods lab, Research in Psychology, and special topics honors lab. With the curriculum changes coming up, I’m hopeful I’ll teach even more!
  • Being able to try out different teaching techniques. Because I teach so much, I’m able to try out different teaching techniques and figure out what works best for my students.
• Able to play a role in large projects. Being at a small institution means that even though you’re new, you can still be called upon for larger campus-wide projects. This can be daunting, but also good. It highlights the impact you can make and how important your role is.
• Small department. The psychology department at WPU is made up of 3 full-time faculty. This is nice because my opinion matters when we make curriculum changes.
• Not a publish or perish environment. Professional development is viewed as more diverse than just publishing journal articles, which I’m absolutely grateful for!

​CONS

• Lack of research talks. I miss talking about research, which is something I didn’t anticipate. I long for the days of brown bag research talks.
• Cost (for students). At times, I feel bad that my students pay so much in tuition when I only attended larger state schools.
• Pay. I will admit that the salary leaves some to be desired, but I like to remind myself that money isn’t everything. And I did choose to work here; there were reasons why I took a lower paying position.
• Small department. Having fewer colleagues means I have fewer people to collaborate with or even just talk about research with. But this does force me to look elsewhere for collaborations, which is actually a good thing! It promotes interdisciplinary projects.
• Large amount of student athletes. I’m not saying all athletes are horrible students, but there is a contingent of student athletes that attend solely to play their sport. Teaching students who have education as their second priority makes it difficult to connect with and motivate them.
• Lack of options (for students). Because we are a smaller school, this means that students have fewer options for majors and courses.

These are some of the pros and cons I’ve noticed about working at a small, liberal arts institution. If you work at a place like this, what other things have you observed? If not, what are some pros and cons about where you work?
 
written by Jen Blush