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Job Description
The Department of Industrial Design, in the Division of Architecture + Design, at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), invites applications for two full-time faculty appointments at the rank of Assistant/Associate Professor, to commence in fall 2023 . Rank will be dependent on professional status and teaching experience.
RISD recognizes principles of social equity, diversity, and inclusion as fundamental to its academic mission as an art and design school. We understand these principles to require ongoing attention to differential embodied experience and expansion of the forms of knowledge from which our curricula originate. RISD is engaged in the collective work of institutional transformation and would value applicants whose pedagogical and professional experiences have prepared them to foster equitable teaching and learning environments. We seek applicants whose teaching and professional work (creative practice and/or academic scholarship) attends to embodied difference as intersectional and centers on bodies of knowledge from historically underrepresented communities. We encourage applicants from traditionally underrepresented communities including Native American peoples, Black and Indigenous peoples of color, Latinx, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, veterans, and persons with disabilities.
The Industrial Design Department is actively engaged with RISD’s strategic plan to help shape more just societies, to address sustainability and the climate crisis, and to contribute new knowledge through creative inquiry and practice. We seek candidates who are accomplished designers, have a clear and compelling research agenda – as evidenced through their creative, scholarly or professional work – and who share our deep commitment to teaching. Candidates should be able, and ready, to teach a range of core and advanced coursework for undergraduate and graduate students.
We invite applications from agile thinkers working across the breadth of industrial design. Candidates’ applications should demonstrate their ability to enhance and advance the department’s curriculum and to expand our vision of industrial design by bringing fresh perspectives to research and design processes, to making and experimentation, and to forms of practice.
All applications are welcome. However, the Department is keen to add colleagues whose teaching and professional records aligns with one or more of the following areas:
A skilled maker whose work advances material exploration, innovative processes, or technological innovation. They would work with colleagues to extend our foundational curriculum in order to contribute to sustainable 21st century materials, making, and methods. A successful applicant in this area will help conceive and advance this effort in the department.
A design researcher or practitioner whose work focuses on equity and inclusion. Applications are welcome for activist-practitioners who engage with the experiences and forms of knowledge of historically underrepresented communities and who apply new methods for working for, with, and alongside their community collaborators. Applications are also welcome from those whose scholarly training and/or experience could help the department craft and teach new courses that decenter canons by introducing alternate ways of making, learning, and knowing, or from those who may be exploring issues of power in the discipline.
Cutting edge academics or professionals who are eager to join the ID faculty and contribute in new and novel ways to our department mission through their work and their teaching.
Candidates should possess the ability and desire to work collaboratively as part of a creative team of faculty. Successful candidates will join faculty colleagues with diverse skills and experiences in stewarding the development and growth of the Department, its graduate and undergraduate programs, and a shared masters program with the Engineering Department at Brown University (MADE).
Required Qualifications
A Masters Degree in Industrial Design or a closely, and demonstrably, related field.
Evidence of collegiate teaching experience and ability commensurate with the rank the applicant is seeking.
A clear research, or design, agenda, which can be demonstrated through academic publications, organized symposia, curated exhibitions, installations, and/or significant professional work.
Ability to teach and advise undergraduate and graduate students.
The ability to support a culturally diverse group of students in the development of their design and leadership skills.
Good interpersonal skills, including: clarity, generosity, and creativity in both professional work and teaching.
Ability to work collaboratively with others (students, faculty, and staff) to create a supportive learning environment.
A demonstrated teaching and/or professional record that exemplifies inclusionary practice.
A demonstrated record of inclusive leadership.
Preferred Qualifications
Evidence of academic leadership capacity, for instance, as Graduate Program Director, Department Head, or Committee Chair. (Department faculty are appointed to these positions on a cyclical basis, to oversee curriculum, the department budget, facilities, and staff, and to lead continuous faculty development.)
Department /RISD Description
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is an undergraduate and graduate college of art and design with approximately 2,500 graduate and undergraduate students. RISD supports faculty professional practice with sabbaticals, pre-critical review leave, conference funds, and professional development grants. RISD has a critical review process, which is very similar to the tenure process. For more information about RISD, please visit www.risd.edu.
With 15 full-time faculty and 40 part-time faculty, the Industrial Design departments runs 138 classes (per year) for 263 BFA candidates, 33 MID candidates, 20 candidates from the joint Masters of Arts and Design Engineering with Brown University, and a limited number of non-major students from across RISD and Brown.
In Industrial Design we believe that designers must be critical makers and critical thinkers. To enable our students to learn, think, and lead, we use material making and material design to gain hands-on design experience; to explore how to apply these processes to new products, services, and systems; and to gain mastery of the mindsets and methods to create new and meaningful innovation. For more about the department visit: https://id.risd.edu/
Our alumni go on to become professional and academic leaders in a field that is no longer narrowly focused on the creation of industrial goods. They design the objects, experiences, services and systems that give shape to contemporary life.
Faculty Responsibilities
The full-time faculty teaching load is six teaching units a year. In Industrial Design, full-time faculty usually teach two studios (2 teaching units each) and two courses (1 teaching unit each) each year. In addition to teaching, full-time faculty are expected to maintain a dynamic professional practice, serve on college committees, advise students, participate in curriculum development and other departmental activities and projects, and contribute to the vibrancy of the intellectual life of the college.
Union Yes
Pre-employment Requirement
The successful candidate will be required to meet our pre-employment background screening requirements.
Special Instructions to Applicants
RISD Faculty Search Committees comprise colleagues from within and outside of the hiring Department.
Please attach the following to the appropriate links in the section labeled “Documents Needed to Apply”:
1.) Letter of intent
2.) Curriculum vitae
3.) A statement of teaching philosophy that includes your teaching approach and experience, a brief description of two courses (undergraduate and graduate) you would be interested in teaching at RISD, as well as a discussion of the role of social equity, diversity, and inclusion in your pedagogy (1500 words maximum).
4.) A research statement that includes a summary of your area of interest, current goals, outcomes and future plans (1500 words maximum) (attach to tab labeled “Other 1”).
5.) Examples of two relevant syllabi for courses taught or proposed, if courses were team taught, highlight your contribution.
6.) Examples of student work, where possible these selections should reflect your teaching pedagogy and teaching philosophy (20 images maximum, in one PDF). The portfolio should include a brief statement to assist the committee in understanding the work and its relation to your teaching statement.
7.) Portfolio of recent professional work (20 images maximum, in one PDF). The portfolio should include a brief statement to assist the committee in understanding the work and its relation to your research statement.
File size is limited to 9 MB per file. Applicant materials cannot include links.
Materials that do not comply with the instructions will not be considered. Only materials that have been requested will be considered.
Names and contact information for three references are requested as part of the application process. Requests for reference letters are sent directly to the reference providers when candidates become semifinalists.
Review of applications begins immediately and continues until the position is filled. Candidates who submit their materials by December 14, 2022 are assured full consideration.
EEO Statement
RISD is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetics, or any other protected characteristic as established by law.
