Open Rank Faculty Position in Design

The Department of Design in the School of Design and Creative Technologies (SDCT)at The University of Texas at Austin (UT) seeks two or more open-rank faculty in Design. Tenure status and rank will be based on candidates’ profiles and experience.

One of our goals as a department is to ensure that design serves—and is practiced by—people of diverse races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, abilities, ages, socioeconomic statuses, nationalities, and linguistic and cultural traditions. Recognizing that the profession of design as it exists in the United States today is both a product and a (re)producer of white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, and elitism, we invite applications from academics and practitioners whose teaching, scholarship, professional practice, creative activity, and/or service disrupts this tradition. We especially welcome applications from candidates belonging to groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, including women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA people, and people with disabilities.

As a relatively small program needing to grow in the areas of interaction, service, graphic, and industrial design, we are less concerned right now with hiring in any one of these areas of specialization than in being led by and collaborating with faculty colleagues whose practice and teaching will help orient the department toward social justice, inclusion, and equity.

Required Qualifications:
To be considered for this position, you must:

• hold a terminal degree in your field by date of hire, OR possess a record of equivalent professional experience or scholarly/creative achievement;
• have a record of working productively with people of diverse disciplines, ranks, races, ethnicities, nationalities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, and abilities;
• demonstrate a high level of craft in one or more subfields of design, including expertise with contemporary design processes, workflows, and relevant software.

Desired Qualifications:
We are particularly interested in candidates who:

• can teach UI/UX design, industrial design, graphic design, or service/experience design;
• engage in creative or scholarly work that centers on issues of race, ethnicity, decoloniality, intersectionality, oppression, resistance, and/or activism;
• have a record of teaching, scholarship, professional practice, creative activity, and/or service that centers on ensuring that design serves—and is practiced by—people of diverse races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, abilities, ages, socioeconomic statuses, nationalities, and linguistic and cultural traditions;
• have taught both small- and large-enrollment courses;
• have taught hybrid and/or online courses.

Responsibilities of this position may include:

• teaching introductory courses in the Design BA, BFA, and MFA programs and/or MA in Design in Health program (to both design majors and curious non-majors from engineering, business, computer science, medicine, and other fields);
• developing and teaching introductory through advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, including thematic/special topics courses, in your area of specialization;
• team-teaching interdisciplinary courses that enroll students from multiple majors;
• supervising undergraduate and/or graduate independent studies;
• supervising undergraduate and/or graduate final projects, exhibitions, and/or reports;
• writing or revising undergraduate and graduate curricula;
• serving on department, school, college, and/or university committees.

Faculty appointed with tenure or to the tenure track are also expected to maintain an active agenda of scholarly research, professional practice, and/or creative work that creates or sustains their national profile in the field. Non-tenure-track faculty are encouraged—but not required—to maintain an active professional practice or scholarly research program.

To apply for the position, please submit the following to Interfolio at https://apply.interfolio.com/82052:

1. A letter of application explaining your qualifications for, and interest in, the position, including discussion of your most significant research/creative/professional, teaching, and service activities in the arena of design for equity, diversity, inclusion, and/or social justice;
2. A curriculum vitae (CV) or professional résumé;
3. A link to or pdf of a portfolio of recent design work
4. Contact information for three references (letters will be requested only for finalists).

Applications received by January 22, 2021 will be assured a full review. Applications received after that date will be reviewed as needed until the position is filled. Due to current travel restrictions, we expect to conduct all interviews remotely.

Questions about the application process and Interfolio may be directed to SDCT Executive Assistant Mr. Cameron Weed at cweed@austin.utexas.edu; questions about the positions themselves may be directed to search committee chair Prof. Jason Wilkins at jasonwilkins@utexas.edu.