New departmentally-based tenure-line positions, distributed across the three interdisciplinary constellations, created to strengthen departmental curricula while forging connections across areas in need of sustainable development. {In addition to the eight tenure-line positions already attached or promised, we aspire to six tenure-line hires connected to the programs located among the constellations.}
New tenure-line positions targeted for areas of great need (e.g., where enrollment pressures are straining over-‐taxed curricular and faculty resources, significantly constraining a discipline’s ability to meet student needs and develop its intellectual mission) {We aspire to two “free-floating” tenure-line positions.}
Some Guidelines for New Hires
- The faculty will have responsibility for determining how to implement the academic plan, including: approving new areas of study and new curricular pathways; allocating new resources for faculty hires; and seeking the proper balance between innovation and sustainability.
- New faculty lines will be established on a pay-as-you-go basis.
- The College will undertake a robust approach to ensuring that applicant pools for all searches are diverse and will recognize faculty diversity as a compelling institutional priority in hiring decisions.
- Both standing and envisioned interdisciplinary programs require dedicated faculty commitments in order to remain intellectually vital and to become bureaucratically sustainable.
- Hires that stabilize programs should also strengthen departments. Principles for distributing responsibilities for and evaluations of such hires will be established at the time of appointment and overseen annually by the Provost.
- We anticipate that departments will draw from their 2012 Blueprint statements in articulating their needs and in formulating connections between their internal curricular aims and those of programs with which affinities are most compelling.
- The College will seek opportunities for cluster hires that can galvanize new areas of the curriculum and create synergies across programs and should also explore possibilities for meeting these needs via conversion appointments or other apportionment of existing resources.
- The College will undertake a robust approach to ensuring that applicant pools for all searches are diverse and will recognize faculty diversity as a compelling institutional priority in hiring decisions.
Post-doctoral and program coordinator positions to strengthen programs and assist established faculty to participate in interdisciplinary areas. Post-docs bring us fresh curricular ideas, especially in practitioner areas (like documentary film‐making), while program coordinators alleviate administrative burdens currently borne by faculty Concentration/Minor Coordinators and provide creative programming for the constellations. {We aspire to three such positions.}
Staff positions for technical and field expertise, program oversight, and administrative support. Especially in library and IT positions, staff are increasingly partners and not merely assistants to faculty in advancing curricular aims, while well-trained AAs can be integral to the smooth operation of departments and programs. {We aspire to four such positions.}