Pros
There's a lot of good things about Ball State. The university seems to be financially responsible and organized (no salary cuts during the COVID pandemic for full-time faculty, for example). The campus is beautiful and comfortable (but not a lot of good food options—other than the typical American junk food). There's a fantastic art museum. Colleagues are overall very friendly, and I've never seen or heard of anything toxic—obviously, I didn't know all departments, so this could be different depending on your area. The benefits package is quite decent, the salary is not bad (for the region/university), but it is lower than the US average (not surprising). The work load is fine (despite the teaching load) because it's a low-profile, low-pressure R2 university. You don't have to do much to do a lot, if you know what I mean. In sum, if you are minimally organized and focused, you will likely have a lot of extra time, which means work-life balance won't be an issue. Finally, there are a couple of interesting grant opportunities on campus, which are easy to get given that the competition is internal.
Cons
Ball State is an R2 university with an ambition to become an R3. Research is very low in most areas, and teaching is clearly more important than anything else (despite what you might hear, i.e., that "research, teaching, and service are all important"). Teaching load is very high (3-3), so expecting any "good" research is already absurd. On campus, very few academic events take place other than those on topics related to social justice—I can't remember any real research-oriented event while I was there. The students require an amazing amount of hand-holding and flexibility (even at the graduate level). Some students have absolutely no profile to be on campus, but they are—this is also true for graduate school, which sometimes will admit literally anyone who's willing to come given the low numbers of applicants. This means some will drop out, which makes the administration worry and "ask" you to "be more flexible"—which basically means "make things easier on the students". This isn't that surprising, honestly, but it's just very frustrating. On paper, the motto there is "inclusive excellence", and you will hear the word "excellence" being used in a pretty vacuous manner; it doesn't really mean anything anymore. It's like telling people "you can do anything!"—which is not only BS, but also a terrible thing to tell people who clearly can't be most things. The year I arrived at Ball State some faculty member from a different department said (about the university) that "people are friendly and mean well, even if they're incompetent". I thought that comment was unnecessary and rude, but after some years there I had to agree, unfortunately. Being an R2, you will likely not have any colleagues who are top researchers—that's expected (after all, R2 basically means national recognition most of the time in practice). But what's worse than that is that you will have colleagues who are really really weak academically—and who will make more than you do for a number of reasons. And they will get tenure, of course. I've seen people come and go, sometimes less than a year after they were hired—retention is unsurprisingly a problem. Most people only stay if they can't get another permanent position at a better place (which, admittedly, is quite difficult). On top of all that, Muncie is not a good city to live in, so it's really surprising that the university doesn't beg people to stay (well, they don't have to given the academic job market...). Other than having cheap houses to buy, there's really no other advantage to living in Muncie (and you'll have a hard time finding a house that is decent, so "cheap" doesn't mean "easy to find" if you have at least some reasonable criteria for a place). Rent is also not the cheapest given what the city has to offer. You're not far from Chicago or Bloomington, where the academic scene is good, but you will feel academically isolated for sure. As a result of all this, you will notice that morale is *really* low among many, from students to faculty. People just know that, well, things are not that great in Muncie. Don't get me wrong: if you manage to get a permanent job at Ball State, go for it. These jobs are so rare these days anyway; people here are friendly, and you'll have a good life. Your career there will be totally fine. If you come from a good R1, it will feel like you're not even working (intellectually speaking), but you'll get tired because of the teaching and the hand-holding. Ultimately, though, once you have the job, you will realize that there are many annoying things that are very hard to digest as time goes by. In the end, not having any challenges, and having to cope with all the stuff mentioned above can be quite costly.
