Assistant Professor of STEM Education

The Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University invites applications from innovative and thoughtful colleagues to join our faculty at the rank of an Assistant Professor in STEM Education with an emphasis and/or background in mathematics education. This full-time, tenure-track position with a nine-month academic year appointment will start on September 1, 2022.

Texas Tech University is the flagship of the Texas Tech University System and a Carnegie Tier One research university. The current enrollment is nearly 40,000 students. As a Hispanic Serving Institution, Texas Tech University seeks to foster an environment that promotes inclusive access and attracts committed and high-achieving students. We are dedicated to recruiting and retaining a diverse group of faculty members to educate and empower our diverse student body while also serving an extremely vast and diverse state with an increasingly culturally pluralistic population. The university has also been awarded the Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization by NAFSA: Association of International Educators twice in the last four years.

Lubbock, Texas (Pop. 260,000) is an outstanding place to live and work. This growing city, with its college-town feel, has a remarkable history and a vital future. Lubbock is the commercial, agricultural, medical, financial, and cultural hub of the South Plains. The City of Lubbock and Texas Tech University enjoy an exceptionally cooperative and supportive relationship extending from community health to cotton crop production, from wind energy to education. Lubbock is nationally recognized as an outstanding place to raise a family, and offers ease of access for commuting across town, or travel across the nation. Depending on one’s personal preferences, there are plenty of recreational opportunities and a wide variety of restaurants and shopping, community events and cultural activities including breweries and wine bars, a vibrant live-music scene, along with more traditional performing arts. 

The Texas Tech University College of Education, with over 2,000 students, offers a nationally recognized undergraduate teacher preparation program, and 21 graduate degrees that prepare students for professional or academic positions in education. The department and college place a focus on strategic outreach and engaged scholarship. We collaborate with local, regional, state, national and global partners to address complex problems facing individuals and communities. In recognition of its extraordinary community outreach efforts, the college received a 2018 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).

The Department of Curriculum and Instruction offers a competitive graduate program that is growing both nationally and internationally. We are a diverse community of scholars, researchers, and educators with a commitment to excellence in education and serving EC-12 public schools and beyond.

Our Curriculum & Instruction with a STEM Concentration PhD Program and Curriculum & Instruction with a STEM Concentration MEd Program plays an important role in Texas Tech’s strategic area of education and empowerment of our diverse student body and needs faculty who will contribute to the advancement of this goal. Nationally, there is a need in supporting mathematics and STEM education research and practitioner-based, K-20 educational practices to create and sustain an informed, STEM-literate citizenry as well as supporting mathematics and STEM education for rural areas, including west Texas. We are therefore seeking highly qualified applicants who have expertise in mathematics and/or STEM education to meet our instructional and research demands.

Applicants should be committed to collaborating with faculty across the disciplines to engage in rigorous and theoretically grounded research approaches to support the educational and research experiences for mathematics and/or STEM education students in the MEd and PhD programs. Candidates from underrepresented groups in higher education faculty with experience working in culturally and linguistically diverse settings are strongly encouraged to apply. In addition, candidates who have strong records of scholarship supported by extramural funding to bring externally sponsored research to Texas Tech University are encouraged to apply. The salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Responsibilities of the successful candidate:

1. Design and teach graduate courses online and/or face-to-face, related to mathematics education and/or STEM education to meet the program needs for MEd and PhD students.
2. Lead the program efforts for recruitment and retention that will expand the STEM education program.
3. Advise graduate students and chair doctoral committees.
4. Serve on doctoral student committees and on Curriculum & Instruction’s MEd comprehensive exam committees.
5. Collaborate and cooperate with colleagues to fulfill the needs of the program and the department and college’s strategic goals.
6. Establish and maintain a rigorous research agenda in mathematics education and/or STEM education.
7. Actively participate in service for the department, college, and university committees including program/course-building.
8. Actively seek extramural funding.
9. Develop and foster partnerships with school districts, other colleges, and universities for engaged scholarship.
10. Participate in local, state, national, and international education organizations.
    

Required Qualifications:

1. An earned PhD or EdD in mathematics education, STEM education, Curriculum & Instruction with a mathematics emphasis, or a closely related field by the position’s start date.
2. Three or more years of K-12 classroom/teaching experience in mathematics education and/or STEM education programs.
3. Evidence of an emerging research agenda in mathematics education and/or STEM education including recent (within the past two years) peer-reviewed journal publications.
   

Preferred Qualifications:

1. One or more years of experience in teaching online, graduate mathematics education and/or STEM education courses at the university level.
2. One or more years working with diverse student populations, rural communities, and/or first-generation college students.
3. Experience in teaching and research related to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
4. Evidence of a clear research agenda in mathematics education and/or STEM education.
5. Experience in advising doctoral students and serving on student dissertation and master’s exam committees.
6. Evidence of participation in professional organizations at local, state, national and/or international levels.
7. Evidence of seeking extramural grant funding.
8. Evidence in developing partnerships with school districts for engaged scholarship.
9. Experience with methodological research with a focus on quantitative, qualitative, and/or mixed methods research.
   

Application Instructions:

Interested candidates must submit application materials online at the TTU Personnel Employment website: https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Search/Home/Home?partnerid=25898&siteid=5637#jobDetails=669578_5637

The following documents must be submitted by January 7, 2022:

1. Letter of application
2. Current curriculum vitae
3. Unofficial graduate transcripts
4. One sample publication
5. List of three references with complete addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses
   

For more information about the position, please contact the search committee Co-Chairs, Dr. Gina Childers at gina.childers@ttu.edu or Dr. Jian Wang at jian.wang@ttu.edu.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, Texas Tech University is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse faculty committed to teaching and working in a multicultural environment. We actively encourage applications from all those who can contribute, through their research, teaching and/or service, to the diversity and excellence of the academic community at Texas Tech University. The University welcomes applications from minoritized candidates, women, veterans, persons with disability and dual-career couples. Texas Tech University recently surpassed the Hispanic student population threshold necessary for designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). To learn more about the university’s commitment to diversity, please visit The Office of Institutional Diversity.