Professor Rachel Harris leaves her home at 4 a.m. every Tuesday morning. She catches the early flight from Tampa to Chicago-Midway and then drives two and a half hours to the University, all before her 11 a.m. lecture.

Harris is the associate professor of Israeli Literature and Culture, and for the past two years, she has commuted the 1,080 miles every week to work.

“The problem that many of us have is that we have working spouses. Our other-halves have careers that couldn’t work in Champaign,” Harris said. “And when you have small children, you have to have a home that works with the small child.”

With a three-year-old son back in Florida, Harris commutes, not only to provide a stable home but also to maintain her career.

“The very first time I did the commute, I made him a little book and wrote him a story — that sometimes mommy goes away, but at the very end, I come home. The story tells all the things that my son gets up to with my husband while I’m away and the kind of adventures they have,” Harris said. “I think what was really important was giving him the language to understand the emotional experience, but he does get really upset and clingy when I get home.”

Harris said the weekly commute is tiresome and emotionally draining. She explained one situation when her flight back home was canceled because of the fog, and her husband needed to leave for a business trip.

“We originally had a crossover of an hour, and when I didn’t make it home that night and he had to be away, there was an emergency childcare situation,” Harris said.

While weekly flights and car rentals are not an economical way to live, Harris said that commuting is worth it professionally.

Harris has a variety of opportunities at the University, including working with the dance department and working on the Israel Studies Project, which allows her to bring in speakers and visitors for periods of time.

“I can do these interesting big-scale projects, and the University is looking to do more stuff about Israel,” Harris said. “There are exciting work opportunities here.”

Professor Eugene Avrutin, associate professor in the Department of History, has been commuting from Indianapolis, Indiana for the past 10 years.

“I’ve had the chance to move closer for various reasons, but I’ve chosen to remain here,” Avrutin said. “Our department is extremely understanding of this. They’ve allowed me to do what I do best and to work with my strengths rather than weaknesses.”

Avrutin worked at the University for one year before moving to Indianapolis for his wife’s job at Eli Lilly. He’s been able to make it work because of the flexibility of being a professor.

“We’ve thought of living in the middle — Crawfordsville, Indiana — where they have one Walmart and one Starbucks. It’s about an hour (commute) each way, but it also has its drawbacks,” Avrutin said.

This semester, Avrutin is on campus Monday through Wednesday and rents an apartment in Champaign.

The number of University professors commuting long distances has increased due to the easy accessibility of email, Skype and online courses. However, the University does not offer higher salaries or a transportation budget for those who choose to commute.

“I wish the University could do more to support people with these difficult situations, like offer more courses online, maybe being able to teach all my courses one semester so I’m only doing the commute one semester,” Harris said. “It would be great if the University thought proactively about the difficulties.”

Despite their limited days on campus, both Harris and Avrutin don’t believe that it limits students’ access to them.

“Students today prefer more virtual contact. If there is some kind of urgent need, I Skype. I think that modern technology makes it less restrictive, and we teach so many classes online that students today expect online engagement,” Harris said.

Lizzie Levine, junior in LAS, took Media Law from professor Holden, who also travels to the University from Columbus, Georgia. Levine said she admired his dedication to his classes and his family.

“He clearly wanted to keep his wife happy and allow her (the opportunity) to work her own dream job,” Levine said. “He obviously cares a lot about his family and his wife to be willing to have to continue to travel the long distance to be away for periods of time.”

Aside from everything, it takes the support of family to make the hectic travel schedules work.

“My mother said to me last week that she couldn’t understand doing this, but understands that I have a career rather than a job and that the long-term implications of this are harder and makes us less movable,” Harris said.

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