DoVA Job Opportunities
Department Chair
The Department of Visual Arts is searching for a new Chair, to be hired at the rank of tenured Associate or Full Professor, who will have both teaching and administrative responsibilities, and who will assume leadership of significant developments at Chicago over the course of the next several years. The Chair oversees personnel cases (including subsequent hires); graduate student recruitment; the undergraduate and graduate curriculum; the advising system in which faculty work closely with students in a variety of media; a Resource Center for the technological support of the arts; and the exhibition of student work. The Chair also organizes faculty committees, works closely with the Dean of Humanities and the Dean of College to develop a clear vision for the arts within a research institution, and participates in fund-raising opportunities. Over the course of the next three years, the Chair will oversee the Department's move into the Logan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts (scheduled to open in 2011).
Artists, curators, critics, and art-historians are all encouraged to apply. Candidates should have an MFA, PhD, or equivalent professional experience; a long-standing commitment to their own art and/or academic work; a substantial exhibition and/or publication record; and a well thought out approach to arts administration. The ideal candidate will have experience in the contemporary art world and with academic institutions; will have the capacity to communicate about a wide range of art practices and to foster common goals among a diverse group of artists; and will have the kind of intellectual and creative enthusiasm that can build bridges between the arts and other academic programs within an intense liberal arts College, as between the arts and various interdisciplinary research initiatives across campus. The successful candidate will serve a three-year term (renewable) as Chair; after stepping down as Chair she or he will teach full time as a tenured member of the University faculty.
The Search Committee will begin reading applications September 1, 2008. The initial deadline for applications is September 16, but the Committee will continue to search until the position is filled.
Only hard copies of application materials will be accepted. Electronic submissions will not be acknowledged.
Applicants should send a letter that not only describes qualifications but also offers some pedagogical and administrative philosophy for the arts; a curriculum vitae; a list of three references; and examples of art, critical, or curatorial work on CD to: Laura Letinsky and Bill Brown, Chairs, Search Committee, Department of Visual Arts, The University of Chicago, 6016 S. Ingleside, Chicago, IL, 60637. The Visual Arts web site is: http://dova.uchicago.edu/.
