The Environmental Studies Program at Augustana College invites applications for a full-time (9-month) Visiting Assistant Professor beginning August of this year.  Augustana College is a selective liberal arts college of 2,500 students, most of whom live on a wooded 115-acre campus. Rock Island, Illinois is one of the Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities along the Mississippi River, a diverse metropolitan area with 400,000 residents approximately three hours west of Chicago.

The candidate will play a critical role in teaching courses in the Environmental Studies curriculum, a rapidly growing interdisciplinary program with approximately 100 majors. Teaching responsibilities could include an introductory environmental studies course, climate change, sustainable energy, upper level courses in their areas of expertise, and contribute to the capstone interdisciplinary sequence by guiding the stakeholder process. The signature sustainability pedagogy of the core curriculum often combines team-based and project/problem-based learning. Faculty may have the opportunity to contribute to Upper Mississippi Center for Sustainable Communities (UMC) Sustainable Working Landscapes Initiative (SWLI; matches city identified sustainability problems with courses to create real-world learning experiences for students) or other community-based sustainability projects through their teaching. We encourage applicants to address their experience and/or passion for teaching courses using these pedagogies in their letter of application. The teaching load for this position will total 24 credit hours (courses are typically 3 cr hr), including a possible contribution to the introductory liberal arts sequence.

Preference will be given to interdisciplinary candidates and those with areas of specialization in the social sciences or humanities (see below) emphasizing the human dimensions of environmental problems. We encourage applications from those with interdisciplinary backgrounds in both the natural sciences and social sciences/humanities; however, applicants should explicitly demonstrate in their letter of application and teaching statement their expertise in the human dimensions of sustainability problems.

Augustana College is committed to building a diverse educational environment. Thus, we are particularly interested in candidates from underrepresented groups with a demonstrated passion for social/environmental justice and working with diverse student and community populations. We encourage applicants, in their letter of application, to address how they will further this goal in their teaching, scholarship, and/or service.

Augustana does not discriminate based on age, race, color, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability or creed. Details about Augustana, our expectations of the faculty, the selection process, and the Quad Cities all are available at the Faculty Search website: http://www.augustanafaculty.org/.

Full job details are available here. The outgoing VAP, Olivia Williams, says: ‘This is a position I left open this week by moving toward another opportunity. Augustana is a lovely place to work, full of supportive colleagues and dedicated students.’