Pros
In the state of Indiana, Bloomington has the best quality of life. That isn't saying much, I admit, but if you're stuck in the state, you might as well be here. The Music School is great, if you have the good luck to be associated with it. And the campus landscapers do a very nice job.
Cons
The College is tremendously underfunded, and there are huge financial inequities between schools and even between departments on campus. It's not a happy place, and most faculty I know who are not tied down by family are actively looking for jobs at other universities. Funding for research and conferences is a joke: my annual travel money won't even buy me a domestic plane ticket, so it's no surprise I don't present at conferences. Salaries for staff and for core faculty barely keep pace with cost of living: no matter how much you publish or how many teaching awards you win, don't expect a raise beyond the across-the-board annual increments unless you have a job offer from another U. Promotions don't necessarily bring salary increases. "Congratulations on getting tenure! You're now an associate professor! Here's your 1.5% raise, which you would have gotten anyway, just like everyone else; and by the way, our new assistant prof, just out of grad school, makes only $500 less than you do, even though you've been here five years and you have published two books. We're sure your new title will make you very happy." Of course, if you're in the Law School, Business School, Informatics, or football/basketball, the living is easy, since you make between twice and ten times as much as those poor fools in fine art, history, French, mathematics, and sociology, and you have a nicer office, too. Students are for the most part genial idiots. Administrators like to show off the IT infrastructure, but they don't appear to care about anything else. The town in general is anti-intellectual: off campus it's best not to admit to being a professor, though it's fine to admit to being a coach, NCAA violations or not.
