WENHAM — If you were thinking of taking a job and they told you they'd pay 80 percent of your health insurance premium every month, would that make you want to hear more? And if they told you that if you did get sick, so sick you couldn't work, they'd make sure you got full pay every week for up to six months, would you think, "This might be a pretty good place to work"?

Well, if you signed on, they'd also offer to help you get a second mortgage so you can afford to buy a house or condo on the North Shore, and then pay half that bill, every month, no questions asked.

If you're enjoying those three benefits, you're probably among the 450 or so employees of Gordon College, and they are just some of the reasons the Chronicle of Higher Education recently named the school one of its Great Colleges to Work For.

Bentley College was the only other school in the state to earn the distinction. This is the first year the trade publication has made the awards.

The award recognized the school's bountiful benefits in health insurance, housing assistance, vacation or paid time off, disability insurance and post-retirement benefits. The survey that resulted in the awards was conducted by ModernThink LLC, best known for such surveys as the AARP's Best Employers for Workers Over 50.

Faculty and staff were a little surprised by the national recognition, but they've known they have a pretty sweet deal for a long time, Executive Vice President Daniel Tymann said.

"I was blown away by the benefits at Gordon," said Tymann, who previously spent more than 20 years at corporations with some of the best benefit plans out there.

Nancy Anderson, the director of Human Resources, said the school feels it has to sweeten the pie to get top-quality instructors to move to a region that is among the most expensive in the country.

Even with the generous second mortgage program, new faculty members have to look farther and farther from the school to find a home they can afford, she said. She cited one professor who commutes from Wells, Maine.

Science professor Dwight Tshudy knows all about it. He and his wife moved here from Rochester, N.Y., four years ago.

"Our living expenses more than doubled," Tshudy said.

The couple wanted to live somewhere relatively close to Boston, so they opted to buy a condo they could afford in Salem rather than a house farther away.

The school tries to care for its employees' well-being even after they retire. If they contribute at least 5 percent of their salary to a 403(b), the nonprofit employers' version of a 401(k), the school matches it with 10 percent of the employee's income.

Kaye Cook, a psychology professor at the school for the last 30 years, didn't minimize her benefits, but said there are other, less tangible reasons she works in a great place.

Despite the fact that Gordon is an unapologetically Christian school — employees have to sign a statement of faith when hired — "There is diversity in belief, and it is appreciated and respected here," Cook said.

Two years ago, she hosted a conference she said was "a little edgy, a bit outside mainstream Christianity," and she was pleased by the support she got from the administration, which isn't so common elsewhere.

"Friends at other colleges don't talk positively about their administrations," she said.

Cook worked at Children's Hospital Boston before coming to the college and said her salary was lower there and her benefits fewer, and she had the stress of commuting.

Tshudy thinks the contented nature of the staff is perceived well by students.

"They're very aware of their surroundings, and they pick up on any negativity," he said.

He's also emphatic about what he believes makes Gordon College a Great College to Work For.

"The people — across the board," he said. "We're one big happy family."