Tenure Track: Associate Professor/Program Director - Digital Arts & New Media

The Digital Arts and New Media Program (DANM), within the Arts Division at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), invites applications for a tenured faculty member who will also serve as the DANM Program Director.

The DANM Program is an innovative graduate program that brings together artists, curators, designers, performers, programmers, and theorists from a range of disciplines to engage in interdisciplinary research. In the program’s first 10 years, research has been organized around four foci (participatory culture, performative technologies, playable media, and mechatronics). UCSC has a long history of promoting social and environmental justice and supporting socially engaged research. The DANM program engages with this tradition by exploring the potential impact of art and technology on society and the environment.

We seek an established creative practitioner and/or scholar with an active research profile, international reputation, and extensive record of exhibition, performance, and/or publication. We welcome candidates with research expertise from a wide range of areas in digital arts and new media. The successful candidate will have familiarity with a variety of discourses and practices relevant to the field. We are especially interested in candidates who will contribute to the diversity and excellence of our artistic and intellectual community through their research, teaching, and service. This individual must also be able to work with students, faculty, and staff from varied social and cultural backgrounds.

As Program Director, the ideal candidate will lead the development of a strong vision for the program as it enters its second decade. In addition to maintaining an active research and teaching profile, the successful candidate will be responsible for providing administrative leadership which includes: enhancing the reputation of the program by nurturing and disseminating quality research; contributing to graduate education and mentoring graduate students; supervising and managing program staff; participating in recruitment and fundraising efforts; working effectively with divisional faculty and chairs; and collaborating with an interdisciplinary faculty from across the UCSC campus to strengthen and enhance the program.

The campus operates on a schedule of three 11-week quarters per academic year, and faculty are expected to teach five 5-unit courses per year. The successful candidate will receive two course equivalencies for administrative duties as program director and a monthly stipend. All members of the Division are expected to advise and mentor students, engage in research, and undertake administrative service for the department, affiliated college, and university. The Arts Division supports research with the Arts Research Institute http://artsresearch.ucsc.edu/ari/ and Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence http://arts.ucsc.edu/funding/arts-deans-fund-for-excellence; the campus supports research and teaching with grants awarded by the Committee on Research, the Committee on Teaching, and other groups.The campus is located among redwood forests and meadows overlooking Monterey Bay, along California’s Central Coast in close proximity to Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.

RANK: Associate Professor

SALARY: Commensurate with qualifications and experience; academic year (9 month) basis

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS: Terminal degree in Digital Arts and New Media or related field (or equivalent foreign degree), or record of scholarly publication and/or curation, exhibition, programming, and/or performance in any of the following: art and new media conferences, digital literature, film and digital arts festivals, galleries, hardware designs or ‘maker’ kits, locative media or site-specific projects, private commissions, museums, musical and sound art venues, public art, published games, radio, recording labels, released software, tactical media or community interventions, and/or theatrical venues. Demonstrated experience in university teaching at the graduate or undergraduate levels.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: Demonstrated academic administrative leadership (e.g., Department Chair, Institute Director). Experience fostering interdisciplinary research and the development of new programs. Demonstrated commitment to graduate student mentoring.

POSITION AVAILABLE: July 1, 2016, with academic year beginning September 2016.

TO APPLY: Applications are accepted via the UCSC Academic Recruit online system, and must include: 1) a letter of application outlining scholarly background as well as current and future research plans; 2) curriculum vitae with link to an online portfolio of work; 3) a current publication or writing sample; 4) a statement of teaching interests; 5) three letters of recommendation.* Applicants are invited to submit a statement addressing their contributions to diversity through research, teaching, and/or service. Documents/materials must be submitted as PDF files.
Apply at https://recruit.ucsc.edu/apply/JPF00322 Refer to Position JPF00322-16 in all correspondence.
*All letters will be treated as confidential per University of California policy and California state law. For any reference letter provided via a third party (i.e., dossier service, career center), direct the author to UCSC’s confidentiality statement at http://apo.ucsc.edu/confstm.htm

CLOSING DATE: Review of applications will begin on January 4, 2016. To ensure full consideration, applications should be complete by this date. The position will remain open until filled, but not later than 6/30/17.