Teaching Assistant Professor of Emergent Digital Practices

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 master’s 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 one non-tenure track Teaching Assistant Professor (TAP) position starting September 2025. This is a non-tenure track position that provides a three-year contract with full benefits and is renewable with the possibility of promotion. (Promotions to teaching associate and teaching full professor come with longer contracts.)

We seek a candidate who is creatively and critically engaged with emerging art and design practices and eager to bring that engagement into the classroom. We are interested in candidates whose practice and teaching explores diversity, equity, inclusivity, and accessibility across a spectrum of design practices. We seek a colleague who will help us update and deliver our foundations curriculum, contribute to our common curriculum offerings, develop new design-related courses with a high degree of community engagement and public outreach, and help revise, administer, and direct our undergraduate curriculum. We are specifically interested in a teaching-oriented colleague who will further develop EDP curriculum around topics such as design justice, intersectionality and technology, computing and post-colonialism, sustainable systems design, and ecology-based practices for the public good. We are explicitly interested in qualified candidates who can contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion through their teaching and service, and whose teaching explores ethics, equity, inclusivity, accessibility, and sustainability in digital arts, design, and culture. We are interested in candidates whose teaching will advance EDP’s capacity to engage marginalized and minoritized positions in the classroom and beyond. We are also interested in candidates demonstrating their potential to conduct community engaged work at the undergraduate level.

This position will involve teaching technological skills; how to be proactively creative with digital tools rather than chasing industry trends; how to design; how to apply emerging digital theories and culture-oriented science and technology studies; how to ethically and justly use technology given the big challenges and opportunities of our historical moment; and how to contribute to larger communities of creative makers and critical thinkers. One of our goals with this hire is to encourage inclusive and diverse leadership in the creative technology, art, and design fields. We look forward to hiring a colleague who will bring this encouragement to our students.

Essential Functions

• Teach eight in-person 4-credit hour courses in the Emergent Digital Practices Program over three 10-week quarters (Fall, Winter, and Spring).
• Teach a combination of critical cultures (seminars, lectures) and making (studio) courses for EDP majors and minors, including up to five sections in our foundation sequence, as well as the University’s common curriculum.
• Collaborate with the University of Denver’s Center for Community Engagement to advance Scholarship and Learning, Entrepreneurship@DU, and/or other relevant campus and community resources.
• 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.

Research/Scholarship

• Research/scholarly/creative output is welcome and supported, though it is not a job requirement for this position.

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.
• Conduct community engaged work at the undergraduate level.

Required Qualifications

• MA/MS or equivalent degree at time of appointment. International applicants will have a statement of credential equivalency in hand at time of application for full consideration.
• If the candidate does not hold a terminal degree, they must demonstrate equivalent experience, defined as: 3-5 years of relevant professional experience; a substantial record of achievement in that field; a strong regional, national, or international reputation in that field.
• University-level teaching experience beyond a Graduate Teaching Assistantship with a demonstrated potential for excellent teaching.
• Demonstrated ability to teach in more than one of the foundational areas, using the adopted digital tools of EDP.
• Demonstrated ability to teach courses that focus on cultural and critical theoretical aspects of digital technology.

Preferred Qualifications

• MFA/PhD/MPS or equivalent terminal degree at time of appointment. International applicants will have a statement of credential equivalency in hand at time of application for full consideration.
• Two or more years of university-level teaching experience beyond a Graduate Teaching Assistantship
• Demonstrated excellence in university-level teaching
• Prior experience doing and/or directing students doing community engaged work, documented in the candidate’s CV and/or professional portfolio

Working Environment

1. Standard office environment.

2. Unexpected interruptions occur often and stress level is moderate to high.

3. Noise level is quiet to moderate.

Physical Activities

1. Ability to sit in front of a computer for an extended period of time.

2. Occasionally required to move about the office/campus with the capability of transporting objects up to 20 lbs.

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 9, 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 $60,000-$63,000.

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. Teaching statement (2 pages) including a substantive statement addressing how the candidate will support DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) through their teaching. Also, please address capacity to direct community engaged work in undergraduate courses. 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. Portfolio of research, creative and/or professional work (optional)

7. The names and contact information for 3 professional references who can speak to the candidate’s teaching abilities. References will will be requested to upload a letter of recommendation via a link provided by the system for candidates moving forward in the search.

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.

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