Assistant Professor of Emergent Digital Practices
University of Denver

As the University's largest and most varied academic unit, the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) is comprised of artists, learners, performers, scholars, scientists, and teachers across 21+ departments, programs, schools, and centers and acts as a central hub where many of the University's disciplines intersect. Nearly all 6,000 undergraduates at the University take liberal arts courses with us, and about one-third of these students declare a first major in a CAHSS program. Most of our departments, programs and schools offer masters or doctoral programs. CAHSS scholars, artists, instructors, staff, and students collaborate in a shared quest for knowledge about the human condition and the development of skills to improve our local and global communities. The diverse scope of CAHSS allows our students to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed at nearly any career in today's global society.
The Emergent Digital Practices (EDP) program is an interdisciplinary component of the University of Denver. EDP integrates art, design, culture, and technology in a hands-on, collaborative environment. Focused on building a better world, our visionary and speculative work combines creative making and critical thinking to better understand emerging technologies and their impacts on our cultures and ecologies, and to contribute to more meaningful and equitable communities. Our faculty and students bring together inclusive digital design, electronic and new media arts and technology, and creative coding to contribute to our investigations of culture and society, the arts and sciences, media philosophy, speculative and critical futurisms, postcolonialism, and social justice. For more information about the program, see https://liberalarts.du.edu/emergent-digital-practices. The Emergent Digital Practices Program, CAHSS, and the University of Denver are strongly committed to building an inclusive and diverse educational environment.

Position Summary

The Emergent Digital Practices program seeks to fill a tenure-track Assistant Professor position starting September 2025. We seek a candidate who is critically, theoretically, and creatively engaged in emergent practices and discourses from the perspectives of ethical design, just and equitable systems, pluriversal traditions and futures, and inclusivity and accessibility in digital arts and technology. We seek artists/designers/scholars whose research and output technically and critically explores online worldbuilding, interface design, networked communities, emerging information ecologies, creative AI, and/or mobile experiences including augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (AR/VR/MR). This position will expand EDP's offerings into topics related to web design, experience design, and technologies like machine learning, AI, and extended reality (XR). Applications of these design, technological, and critical skillsets may manifest in a number of ways, including such emerging platforms for content development and dissemination as online publishing, social content and experience sharing, collaboration, community building, and critical e-gaming. We are interested in candidates who will have research and/or creative practices that complement and diversify existing program strengths and demonstrate the potential for excellent teaching. We seek a colleague who will help further develop EDP's curriculum in areas including design justice, intersectionality, and post-colonialism, and who will position digital technologies through marginalized and minoritized perspectives. The candidate whose research and practice would model diverse, inclusive, and multicultural approaches to our program, students, and the larger community will be vital to the EDP program's ability to contribute to the University of Denver's commitment to the public good.

Essential Functions

• Sustain and advance a research practice resulting in professional outcomes (e.g., publication, exhibition, performance).
• Teach a combination of critical cultures (seminars, lectures) and making (studio) courses for EDP majors, minors, and the University's common curriculum. The teaching load is five 4-credit-hour courses per academic year spread over three quarters.
• Participate in the maintenance and updating of the EDP program, including curriculum development, administrative responsibilities, contribution to our collective creative spaces, and service to the college, university, community, and field.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Demonstrate a commitment to pluriversal design and capacity to expand EDP curriculum into relevant design-related fields of inclusive and ethical practice.
• Demonstrate understanding of relevant cultural issues relating to emerging media and technology practices.
• Demonstrate an understanding of and experience creating with a range of practices and using accessible and open-source tools in order to teach our Foundation courses in Imaging, Time-based Media, Systems, and/or Creative Coding,
• Demonstrate experience through their research and professional praxis relevant to the topics of focus for upper division courses for EDP majors and minors.
• Develop and teach courses in the common curriculum.
• Effectively integrate diverse and inclusive perspectives and practices into their courses.

Required Qualifications

• MFA/PhD/MPS or equivalent terminal degree at time of application. International applicants will have a statement of credential equivalency in hand at time of application for full consideration.
• University-level teaching experience beyond a Graduate Teaching Assistantship with a demonstrated potential for excellent teaching.
• Able to teach in more than one of the foundational areas, using the adopted digital tools of EDP.
• Able to teach courses that focus on cultural and critical theoretical aspects of digital technology.
• A professional creative practice utilizing digital tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Two or more years of university-level teaching experience beyond a Graduate Teaching Assistantship
• Demonstrated excellence in university-level teaching.
• Research or creative practice of national or international scope, documented in the CV and portfolio.

Working Environment

1. Standard office and classroom environment.
2. Unexpected interruptions occur often and stress level is moderate to high.
3. Noise level is quiet to moderate.

Work Schedule
While the University's administrative offices are open Monday - Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm, faculty schedules vary from term to term and are based on courses taught, service commitments, and research agendas. The University's academic calendars are posted on the registrar's website (the law school is on a semester system and has a different academic calendar).

Application Deadline
For consideration, please submit your application materials by 4:00 p.m. (MST) December 2, 2024.

Special Instructions
Candidates must apply online through jobs.du.edu to be considered. Only applications submitted online will be accepted.

Salary Range:
The salary range for this position is $71,000-$81,000

The University of Denver has provided a compensation range that represents its good faith estimate of what the University may pay for the position at the time of posting. The University may ultimately pay more or less than the posted compensation range. The salary offered to the selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal salary equity considerations, and available market information, but not based on a candidate's sex or any other protected status.

Benefits:
The University of Denver offers excellent benefits, including medical, dental, retirement, paid time off, tuition benefit and ECO pass. The University of Denver is a private institution that empowers students who want to make a difference. Learn more about the University of Denver.

Please include the following documents with your application:

1. Curriculum Vitae
2. Cover Letter (2 pages)
3. Research/creative work statement with links to sample(s) of work (1-2 pages)
4. Teaching statement (1-2 pages) including a substantive statement addressing how the candidate will support DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) through their teaching. Candidates can view DU's DEI Strategic Plan (https://www.du.edu/equity/dei-action-plan) and/or the College of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) DEI Strategic plan (https://liberalarts.du.edu/news-events/all-articles/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-strategic-plan-cahss).
5. Evidence of success in teaching (e.g., syllabi, sample assignments, etc.)
6. Names and contact information for 3 professional references. Letters of recommendation will be requested during the interview stages of the search process

The University of Denver is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression), marital, family, or parental status, pregnancy or related conditions, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. The University of Denver does not discriminate and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, age, religion, creed, disability, sex (including sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression), marital family, and parental status, pregnancy, genetic information, military enlistment, or veteran status, and any other class of individuals protected from discrimination under federal, state, or local law, regulation, or ordinance in any of the University's educational programs and activities, and in the employment (including application for employment) and admissions (including application for admission) context, as required by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972; the Americans with Disabilities Act; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Age Discrimination Act of 1975; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967; the Equal Pay Act; the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act; the Colorado Protecting Opportunities and Worker's Rights ("POWR") Act; and any other federal, state, and local laws, regulations, or ordinances that prohibit discrimination, harassment, and/or retaliation. For more information, please see the University of Denver's Non-Discrimination-Statement.

All offers of employment are contingent upon satisfactory completion of a criminal history background check.

Advertised: September 24, 2024
Applications close: December 02, 2024

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