Assistant Professor of Drama - Scenic Design
Position Overview
Organization: Drama
Title: Assistant Professor of Drama - Scenic Design
Position Details
Position Description
The University of Washington School of Drama (SoD) is hiring one assistant professor, tenure-track position in Design for Live Performance and Expanded Scenic Design to begin September, 2022. This is a full-time position with a 9-month service period. The teaching will be within both undergraduate and graduate programs.
The mission of the SoD is to develop innovative and courageous artists and scholars poised to be the creative leaders of tomorrow. We are committed to producing engaged citizens capable of contributing to a more creative, connected, and compassionate world. The School’s graduates go on to careers in theatre, film, television, arts management, advertising, design, creative media as well as other areas such as law and business where the artist’s skills of critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, entrepreneurship and creativity are essential. The University of Washington serves a diverse population of 45,000 students, faculty, and staff, including 31% first-generation college students, over 30% Pell Grant-eligible students, and faculty from over 70 countries. As a Research I university (meaning the highest level of research activity), UW seeks to hire people with outstanding qualifications who are developing and/or maintaining an ongoing professional career at a national/international level. Seattle is a well-known center of innovation and culture, and the School of Drama enjoys a close relationship with the area’s many performing arts groups. The SoD maintains professionally staffed scenic, paint, properties, electrics, sound, and costume shops.
Ideal candidates will be visionary artists and thinkers, working at the forefront of their design field(s). Candidates who are actively engaged in multiple design disciplines or whose creative practice is interdisciplinary; whose work experience includes devising and/or collaborative processes; spans the analog/digital divide; and/or embraces non-traditional approaches to staging and design are especially welcome to apply. Experience designing for film, digital media, sculpture, installation and/or other interdisciplinary creative work is also considered an asset, as is the ability to additionally teach courses in costumes, lighting, sound, or projection design.
The Design program at the UW School of Drama prides itself on a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to teaching design, and many courses are rotated among the faculty. The successful candidate will teach at both the graduate and undergraduate level (sometimes integrating both populations within a given course). Faculty members are also expected to act as advisors to student designers during school productions and participate in the recruitment of prospective graduate students and in professional networking that might lead to productive internships or other kinds of professional connections for students. Classes a candidate teaches will be informed by their unique creative skillset. Current classes include Studio in Scenic Design, Visual Narrative in Performance, Visual Communication, Tools of Composition, Theatre Technical Practices Laboratory, Digital Media, and Drafting. The program encourages interdisciplinary pedagogy and currently includes courses that are team-taught with faculty of two or three disciplines.
Participation in academic administrative work, including curricular development and committees, is expected along with other forms of service typical of a tenure-track faculty position. Student designers are prioritized in the production season; but faculty may also, on occasion, design within the season as needed. In addition to their duties within the university, faculty are expected to continue to their professional creative practice, within the school’s policies for outside professional work.
Mission/EDIA Commitment
The School of Drama is committed to building and supporting a multicultural community that fosters equity, diversity, inclusion, and access. We aim for all members of our community to think critically about and engage actively with the world around them. To this end, we aim to embed engagement for our faculty, staff, and students with the ways that race, gender identity, sexuality, ability, class, and ethnicity intersect with and shape the human experience, both inside the educational experience and outside of it. We seek candidates whose creative practice, work history, lived experience and prior education (both formal and otherwise) have prepared them to fulfill our commitment to equity and inclusion and have also given them the confidence to effectively engage with students, staff, and community from a wide spectrum of backgrounds. The School of Drama has created and is committed to an Anti-Racist Action Plan, with which we encourage candidates to familiarize themselves. Our faculty and staff are expected to understand and embrace our commitment to respecting and representing diverse ideas, races, genders, sexualities, abilities, cultures, religions, and traditions, and to interrupt behaviors that hinder our work towards anti-racism and our diversity and inclusion efforts. Towards these ends, Black, Indigenous, People of Color and members of other under-represented groups are encouraged to apply for this position.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
Equivalent education/experience – including teaching outside of traditional academia - may substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.
- A demonstrated track record of innovative and rigorous expertise, which may include an MFA (or foreign equivalent) in design or related field OR a bachelor's degree (or foreign equivalent) plus at least five years of professional experience in the field of design.
- A minimum of one year prior teaching experience (part-time acceptable) at the college or university level.
- At least two years of demonstrated experience teaching/mentoring learners in their field, within their professional creative practice or in a traditional academic setting with graduate and/or undergraduate students.
- Continuing (i.e. past, present, and ongoing) experience as a professional designer of live performance spaces, transmedia/digital performance, film and/or television.
- Demonstrated experience with programs/efforts to develop and support equity, diversity, inclusion, and access.
- Demonstrated experience of self-education, cultural awareness, and growth.
- A record of educational approaches that stress the value of collaboration between all members of a production team.
- Eagerness to engage in the school’s Mission, Vision, Values, and Commitments.
Instructions
The University of Washington is using Interfolio’s Faculty Search to conduct this search. Applicants to this position receive a free dossier account and can send all application materials, including confidential letters of recommendation, free of charge.
Applications should include:
- A letter of application describing your expertise and experience in research and teaching as well as your artistic curiosities
- A curriculum vitae
- Three meaningful short samples of your work (static image, video, interactive media, etc.) and a short description of their relevance to your practice
- Contact information for three references
- A diversity statement (750 words)
The diversity statement should describe how your teaching, research and/or service demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusion through scholarship or by improving access to higher education for underrepresented individuals or groups. What efforts have you made or been involved with to foster cultural competence and understanding? What have you done to further your knowledge about equity, diversity, inclusion, and access (EDIA)? How have you demonstrated what you have learned to your colleagues? Please discuss how the work you hope to do at the UW will enhance the University’s and our department’s commitment to EDIA.
The letter of application is an invitation to share what about this position motivates you and how it might connect to your larger professional trajectory, i.e. What motivates your teaching? What are you curious about in your design career? What drives you as a designer or sets you apart from others? What is your vision of the design field of the future? How do all these things connect to your vision as a teacher and researcher at UW?
Priority given to applications received by November 17, 2021.
Questions regarding this posting may be addressed to Adrienne Mackey, the Head of the Search Committee, at amackey1@uw.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
University of Washington is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, genetic information, gender identity or expression, age, disability, or protected veteran status.
Commitment to Diversity
The University of Washington is committed to building diversity among its faculty, librarian, staff, and student communities, and articulates that commitment in the UW Diversity Blueprint (http://www.washington.edu/diversity/diversity-blueprint/). Additionally, the University’s Faculty Code recognizes faculty efforts in research, teaching and/or service that address diversity and equal opportunity as important contributions to a faculty member’s academic profile and responsibilities (https://www.washington.edu/admin/rules/policies/FCG/FCCH24.html#2432).
COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements and Information
Under Washington State Governor Inslee’s Proclamation 21-14.1, University of Washington (UW) workers must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and provide proof thereof, or receive a UW-approved medical or religious exemption. This requirement will be a condition of any offer associated with this recruitment. For more information, please visit https://www.washington.edu/coronavirus/vaccination-requirement/.