Director/Professor

Imagining America

Syracuse University (SU) seeks an established or emerging leader in the field of public scholarship with an emphasis in humanities, art, and design to lead the national organization Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. Imagining America is a national consortium of more than 85 colleges, universities, arts institutes, and community organizations committed to civic engagement in the humanities, art, and design. Its mission is to foster the democratic purposes of the humanities, art, and design through public scholarship, campus-community partnerships, and other forms of publicly-engaged academic work across the cultural disciplines (http://www.imaginingamerica.org/). The organization, launched in 1999 at the University of Michigan, has been housed at SU since 1 July 2007.
The Director will be responsible for providing national leadership of Imagining America (IA). Candidates should have a record of successful strategic planning and implementation, a deep understanding of the higher education landscape, and the ability to promote initiatives that address the priorities of IA member institutions with a wide range of missions. Current IA initiatives focus on civic engagement and diversity, the assessment of learning and community outcomes of engaged scholarship, and the creation of new venues for the publication and dissemination of engaged research, among others. In concert with the senior leadership at SU, the Director will also be involved in guiding projects that reflect SU’s emphasis on Scholarship in Action, including ongoing initiatives on the digital humanities and the public role of art, technology, and design (http://syr.edu/about/vision.html). The Director must be an active participant in national debates and organizational work on the public significance of humanities, arts, and design, and have a vigorous scholarly and writing agenda that explores and exemplifies the public dimensions of scholarly and creative work.
IA’s administrative home at SU is the Office of the Provost; the IA Director will report to and work collaboratively with the Provost and other senior leaders to ensure the alignment of IA and University goals and activities. The Director must be committed to working strategically at the three different organizational levels: nationally at conferences and related events as an advocate for and agent of IA’s vision, mission, values, and goals; across the IA consortium as a leader able to expand and build capacity among IA’s cross-institutional membership; locally and regionally at SU as a collaborator with community and institutional partners in humanities, arts, and design. S/he must be a skilled administrator with responsibility for leadership of five IA staff members, setting the strategic and research priorities for the IA consortium, working with IA’s National Advisory Board to establish directions for the organization, managing budgets, planning and implementing annual meeting and board retreats, creating links between IA and other national organizations on focused on engagement, and continuing the success of IA’s Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) fellowship program.

SU recognizes that the power and essence of IA lies in its broad reach across arts, humanities, design. We wish to attract applicants from a broad array of disciplines and backgrounds, and will facilitate a tenured appointment in one or more of SU’s schools and colleges. This appointment will be continuous, with tenure, whether IA moves to a different host campus in 2017 at the end of the current five-year commitment to SU or renews its partnership with SU. Experience in public and collaborative scholarship is essential, as are excellent leadership, organizational, and communication skills. Ph.D. other appropriate terminal degree in a relevant field with research and teaching credentials appropriate to tenured position.

For a position description and online application instructions, go to www.sujobopps.com, (#028294). Cover letter, resume and list of professional references must be attached. Priority consideration will be given to applications received by November 7, 2011 and the search will remain open until the position is filled. Syracuse University is an AA/EOE.

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