UM has been doing a tremendous amount of lateral hiring lately, and excellent laterals at that. According to the lists compiled by Dan Filler at Concurring Opinions, last year Minnesota recruited Alexandra Klass from William Mitchell College of Law; Heidi Kitrosser from Brooklyn Law School; Claire Hill from Chicago-Kent; Thomas Kotter from Washington & Lee; Francesco Parisi from George Mason; and Chantal Thomas from Fordham. This year, Minnesota has recruited Laura Beny from Michigan; Susanna Blumenthal from Michigan; Thomas Gallanis from Washington and Lee; Michelle Goodwin from DePaul; and Gregory Shaffer from Wisconsin and Loyola.
I'd love to know the secret of Minnesota's recruiting success. I'm sure Minneapolis is a lovely city, but given the winter weather there, it must be awfully hard to persuade people to relocate (though less hard, I'm sure, if the candidate was already in Minneapolis, Chicago, or Ann Arbor, as six of them were--but still, if you lived in Chicago, wouldn't you want to move South).
The one hire that surprises me a bit is Klass from William Mitchell. I just can't imagine leaving a nice place like Billy Mitch for the hassle and frustration of the U of M.
Don't forget all the chain restaurants.
In fact, I look forward to sunny, cold, snow covered days. They're beautiful. The key is to do what the natives do: get outside constantly for sports (or at least walks) the entire winter. As an earlier poster said, it really just is a matter of equipment.
The Twin Cities have a lot of advantages. I know Stanford and UCLA have real problems recruiting senior faculty from less expensive cities because even with a raise the recruit can see that his standard of living is going to fall since a half decent house costs well over a million dollars. Here,
real estate prices, while nothing like a rural area, are still in the range that a professor can raise a family in a nice house without his wife having to work. That is, we're not in the California, New York range. On the other hand, it's a real metropolitan area with non-stop flights when you need to travel to give talks and so forth, and all the other stuff you expect from a real city as opposed to a land grant university in the middle of nowhere.
Insider: consider keeping uninformed speculation to yourself.
boboling - isn't your assertion that insider did not know anything itself speculative ?
Besides, the twin cities have a lot of other things going for them. They have the best theater scene outside of New York and LA, great art galleries and museums and, yes, very good restaurants (not just chains). To top it all off, you have the best schools and park system, and the most highly educated population, of any state in the country, plus a vibrant economy and a quite low cost of living. If you can get past a little cold weather and friggin' "Minnesota Nice", you'll love it.
Why is that?
And we have "Minnesota Nice". Which means that we're all generally very polite and pleasant even while we're passive-agressively jerking you around. Truth be told, though, Minnesota Nice isn't what it used to be.
Can you explain this? Is this sarcasm?
Don't forget classical music if you are into that. Osmo Vanska is relatively new conductor of Minnesota Orchestra and is an outstanding musician. St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in Twin Cities is also outstanding.
Minneapolis/St. Paul (Twin Cities) is a really nice place to live. Maybe it's due to global warming, but I have been here 30 years and the weather does not get as cold or provide as much snow as in the good old days.
Go Gophers!
That's true. I might have said "spouse" instead of "wife." But I didn't. That's because I wrote "Here,
real estate prices, while nothing like a rural area, are still in the range that a professor can raise a family in a nice house without his wife having to work." I have never met a married female professor with a stay at home husband who took care of the kids. Have you?
The U of M men's hockey team (WCHA regular-season and tournament champions, #1 seed in the NCAA West region) isn't doing too shabby either.
Not to mention the NHL's Wild (winners of 8 straight as of this post) who play next door in St. Paul.