I'd love to have a discussion about life as a professor at a uni/college in rural areas of the Bible Belt.
Let's imagine that you're on the TT job market, you are a liberal atheistic/agnostic/secular type, grew up and trained in urban, northern or coastal, relatively cosmopolitan cities, and have never spent time in the South, other than driving through. Single, no kids. You don't identify as GLBT, but those issues are important to you on principle. Your research topics have to do with things like gender, sexuality, sexual health, etc., and all your data can be collected online.
You have an offer for a TT position at a good sized university (~10k students) that fits with your desired balance of teaching/research. It's in a *very* small town in the Bible belt, 1 hr from a liberal small city (pop ~100k). The uni has a diversity/culture office, but seems to be mostly about racial/ethic diversity and few/no initiatives about GLBT stuff—I mention this because I've read that this may be a sign of climate regarding those issues.
What are things to consider and ask oneself in thinking about this? Or questions one should be asking during the interview process? I'm interested in issues regarding non-work life (establishing a social network, day-to-day life, etc.) and workplace issues (researching gender/sexuality/etc., which also frequently permeates one's teaching).
Many thanks for any insights!