As much as I love flying, I must admit that this sounds rather exhausting, and also a little monotonous… but good for her!
In this post:
Professor commutes by plane on days where she teaches
Mlive has the fascinating story of a University of Michigan professor who has been a lifelong New York resident, and commutes to Ann Arbor to teach. Okay, one might wonder if this is clickbait — does she just travel to New York on weekends, and have an apartment in Ann Arbor during the week? Well, it sounds like the answer is no, so let’s step back a bit.
Susan Miller is a full time professor at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, and she has been teaching there since 2021. However, she has never actually lived in Michigan, but instead, lives in Manhattan, New York.
The idea is that she travels between New York and Michigan more than 55 times per year to teach. She pays for her own flights (primarily flying Delta), stays at the Graduate Hotel in downtown Ann Arbor, and is a seasoned traveler who has a carefully orchestrated routine.
She travels to Michigan the night before she is scheduled to teach. She then visits some of her favorite spots, and walks around campus. The next day, she lectures up to five classes, and then has office hours, before flying home that same night, so she typically makes trips lasting around 24 hours. As she explains, “I have no distractions because I’m really away from my home.”
So, why would Miller teach at the University of Michigan, given that she doesn’t otherwise have ties to the area? Well, both of her children decided to attend the University of Michigan, and Miller fell in love with Ann Arbor and the school. While her children attended the school, she flew there 67 times to visit them.
After giving a few guest lectures at the school, she was offered a full time position as a professor in late 2021. While she initially declined the offer due to the distance, she quickly backtracked, and decided she loved the school so much that she wanted to teach there:
“People ask me ‘Why don’t you just teach in New York? There’s NYU, there’s Columbia, there’s Fordham. You could teach in New York.’ I say, there’s something very special about being in Michigan. With the kind of students that we have at Ross, I think they’re just extraordinary. I’ve had opportunities to teach elsewhere, but I just want to teach at Ross.”
She must really enjoy the road warrior lifestyle!
No matter how much this professor loves the school, there’s no denying that traveling this much is draining, so this is a major commitment. Even if you’re great at planning and managing your travel, this kind of an arrangement complicates things massively, and you always have to adapt when things go wrong, and stuff often doesn’t go as smoothly as we expect.
People will of course be divided on this — some will say this sounds like their personal hell, while others will say it sounds like a dream. I do think that no matter how much you enjoy this, it does get exhausting after some amount of time.
When I was 15 years old, the thought of traveling that often would’ve been very exciting, and I would’ve said I would never bore of something like that. But with years, travel like this takes its toll, and I have to imagine that’s the case for her as well.
I guess she has been doing this for a little over four years now, and I’m curious how much longer she’s willing to do this before she either decides to move to Michigan, or stops teaching there.
I suppose this still pales in comparison to the AirAsia super commuter I wrote about last year, who commutes to work by plane every single weekday. The idea is that she works in AirAsia’s office at Kuala Lumpur Airport (KUL), while living in Penang (PEN). She also has the benefit of getting heavily discounted tickets on the airline, given that she works for it, and Penang is a lower cost of living city (which can’t be said about Manhattan!).
Bottom line
A University of Michigan professor chooses to live in Manhattan rather than Ann Arbor, and simply commutes to work. She reportedly travels between New York and Michigan over 55 times per year, typically staying for just 24 hours, to teach classes, have office hours, etc.
This might seem like a strange arrangement, but she’s a lifelong New Yorker, and has no interest in moving. However, her kids went to the University of Michigan, and she fell in love with the school. When she was offered a job, she initially declined, since she didn’t want to move, before quickly changing her mind, and coming up with the creative solution of commuting instead.
Good for her, and I’m curious how much longer she chooses to do this, since I imagine it’s quite exhausting…
What do you make of this super commuting professor?
There was a student who flew to UC Berkeley from LA basically every day a few years ago too
This is a great post, Ben. I live in Baltimore and fly DCA-LAX 22 times per year to teach at UCLA! Been doing it since 2013.
Is that because DL operates DCA-LAX on 75S (lie-flat), and you like the finer things; whereas, UA and WN fly nonstop BWI-LAX, but they're just recliners/economy-only?
I fly Alaska! At this point, I know pretty much every F/A because the same rotation of about 30 of them work the same route.
She's no Fred Finn.
"At the age of 81, he holds the Guinness World Record for the most supersonic passenger flights. Of the 15 million miles Finn clocked up in the sky, 2.5 million of those were recorded on the 718 Concorde flights he took between 1976 and 2003, in ‘his’ seat 9A."
https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/i-would-always-find-a-half-bottle-of-dom-perignon-stashed-under-my-seat-meet-concordes-million-mile-man/
"While her children attended the school, she flew there 67 times to visit them."
Hopefully her kids found her presence as enjoyable as she found Ann Arbor
"While her children attended the school, she flew there 67 times to visit them."
Gives new meaning to the term "helicopter parent."
Reminds me of a student commuting between Calgary and Vancouver to save on rent!
https://www.kktv.com/2024/02/24/student-says-he-flies-class-because-its-cheaper-than-renting-city/
https://nypost.com/2024/02/23/lifestyle/canadian-college-student-tim-chen-flies-2-hours-to-class-to-avoid-paying-rent/
I actually consider this article deeply deeply embarrassing for Ross. You want a faculty that is engaged, dynamic, and, FFS, on freaking site… This makes the school seem like a total clown show
"This makes the school seem like a total clown show"
How so? Is she unreachable during the week? She has office hours. How much one-on-one time did you need from your professors in when you were getting your professional degree? If she's been there since 2021, it sounds like it's working out just fine, considering that students do fill out teacher surveys.
Kinda sad. I would prefer my professor to be more integrated into the campus and community. It's tough to convince a New Yorker to leave, though!
If you wonder why college has become so unaffordable? She's got to be making some serious coin to be able to afford to live in Manhattan and then fly every week to Michigan on her dime. When I went to college from 1977 to 1981 student loans weren't a "thing." In went to a state school and most of the kids were from middle class families. But we have a very modest student center and no professors flying in from NYC.
Oh brother... here we go again, George. Like usual, you’re misdiagnosing the disease. She pays for those flights out of her own pocket, not the university’s. The real reason college costs have skyrocketed since 1981 isn't professors buying plane tickets; it’s that state governments drastically cut funding for public universities, shifting the financial burden entirely onto students. Combine that with a massive explosion in administrative bloat, and that’s why non-dischargeable student loans became a "thing."
Oh brother... here we go again, George. Like usual, you’re misdiagnosing the disease. She pays for those flights out of her own pocket, not the university’s. The real reason college costs have skyrocketed since 1981 isn't professors buying plane tickets; it’s that state governments drastically cut funding for public universities, shifting the financial burden entirely onto students. Combine that with a massive explosion in administrative bloat, and that’s why non-dischargeable student loans became a "thing."
She is officially a "lecturer" (which I don't think is a tenure title) and her public records salary from 2024 is listed at about 91K.
Thank you, betterbub. Facts are more important than George's often-prejudicial feelings.
How does this work financially? She teaches once a week > much be a very high salary that covers a roundtrip and hotel out of the net income.
My wife and I both live in France and work in London. While my company pays for my travel, my wife's company doesn't. We both travel on a weekly basis.
With the mileage I get + some cash tickets when cheap, we make the maths work.
London salaries vs cost of living in France also help making this work.
But this is different she lives in Manhattan where rents are sky high.
Let use round numbers: $250 flight $200 hotel $250 Uber/Lounge/Airport Food = $700 a week = 3k a month
$3k net = 4k pretax = 50k yearly just to pay for commuting for a 20% position?
It's possible she flies basic economy and gets no miles, which is absurd.
It's also possible that credit card spend gets her the mileage to fund that travel.
A grad student in LA flew to SFO UC Berkley during masters program so he could live at home and not pay rent three times a week.
Nice! Go New York! Go Knicks!