Teaching Assistant Professor

Primary Purpose of Organizational Unit

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, opened in 1793 as the first public university in the nation, is a Research One university that serves North Carolina, the United States, and the world through teaching, research, and public service. The University embraces an unwavering commitment to excellence as one of the world's great research universities.

UNC's mission is to serve as a center for research, scholarship, and creativity and to teach a diverse community of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to become the next generation of leaders. The Department of Art & Art History is a dynamic center for research, teaching, and learning within the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It includes Art History and Studio Art and has 23 full-time faculty and 7 staff members.

The Department offers BA, BFA, and MFA degrees in Studio Art, and BA, MA and joint MA/MSLS and PhD degrees in Art History. Our mission statement make/frame/reveal encapsulates both the history and practice sides of the department: we celebrate and embrace experiential strategies, contextual understanding, diverse viewpoints, new insights, and innovative approaches. As an interdisciplinary combination of makers and interpreters, investigators of the present and the past, we are poised to address some of the most pressing social and cultural issues of our time technology, globalization, politics, ecology, memory, identity, economics, ideology in all their complexity.

Art is a laboratory for experimentation, examination, analysis, and engagement. The Department's breadth of expertise, methodology, and experience makes it a place for critical thinking, for challenging students to be curious, inventive, thoughtful, and courageous not only to reach new heights, but remake the very standards of success.

Position Summary

The Department of Art & Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites applications for Teaching Assistant Professor in Photography with a start date of July 1, 2024. The position is an initial fixed term period of 3 years with potential for renewal; promotion is possible in 6-year increments.

The successful candidate will have a dynamic studio practice and will have the ability to teach a range of undergraduate photography courses with an emphasis on the darkroom processes; mentor graduate students working across disciplines, and to articulate knowledge of and work effectively with faculty, staff, and students from diverse backgrounds. Central teaching responsibilities will be in all levels of Photography. Additionally, there will be opportunities to teach interdisciplinary courses, including graduate seminars and experimental courses.

We seek candidates whose creative practices are rooted in contemporary art and interdisciplinarity. We broadly invite applicants who take up a lens-based approach as foundational to their practice, some examples being: installation-related approach to the medium, drawing from photography's status as an indexical trace of the visible world; documentary approach to the image that expands and disrupts historical uses of the genre; or a lens-based approach that engages the performative aspects of the medium. Applicants should be skilled in both traditional analog photography methods and digital technologies and have a fluency in contemporary cultural and aesthetic discourses.

This position calls for teaching 3 courses per semester. Our service responsibilities include departmental committee contributions, advising, and participation in shared governance. In addition to teaching and service responsibilities, the successful candidate will be expected to demonstrate a commitment to a sustained and developing creative practice, with an active and ongoing exhibition and/or publishing record.

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements

MFA or equivalent terminal degree Exhibition record evidence

Preferred Qualifications, Competencies, and Experience

University teaching experience is preferred.

Special Physical/Mental Requirements Campus Security Authority Responsibilities

Not Applicable.

Special Instructions

Required Application Materials - Cover letter detailing your specific interests and qualifications for the position. CV including a list of courses taught. Also include Statement of Research, Teaching Philosophy, Portfolio of 20 digital work samples of your own work and 10 samples of student work (1 PDF). Names and contact information for four professional references.

Quick Link https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/268258