Albright College

Albright College

New Faculty Position Request Preparation Guidelines
(for Traditional Program Faculty)

For faculty positions starting August 15, 2019, submit requests by February 15, 2018
Submit to Academic Affairs Office or to
The following parts need to be completed and submitted to the provost’s office for consideration. Please read the guidelines below relevant to developing your proposal. Department Chairs for traditional programs are advised to review and draw on data from your Academic Department Dashboard and most recent Academic Program Review to support your request.
 New Full-Time Faculty Request Cover Page Form (form below)

Rationale for New Position, including support evidence/data, a section on resources needed, and recruitment information as outlined below (no more than 3 pages).

Proposed Courses and Enrollment form (below)

Developing your Rationale

As a position becomes vacant or a new position is proposed, departments and programs are encouraged to rethink the position anew in response to trends in your field, changes in higher education, and Albright’s mission,vision, and priorities. In every case, departments must think through how a position can serve multiple constituencies, requirements, and needs at Albright. For example, it is not sufficient to just say you need to replace a medievalist with a medievalist; you need to articulate why a medievalist is needed now, at this time and for the projected future and health of Albright, relevant to our goals as a liberal arts college. And you should think through whether a medieval scholar with a focus on Asian history, literature, or philosophy might be more desirable than one with a specialty in Europe. Think of the whole Albright faculty as your audience in articulating your rationale; also think of the needs of our students and our learning objectives.
Provide evidence to support your request, but keep it succinct.

In developing the rationale and request for a new faculty position, each department is expected to have undertaken significant strategic thinking about how an investment in this position would meet the needs of the College, develop strengths, and contribute to areas of distinction. Your position request should reference your most recent program review, relevant assessment data and/or enrollment patterns over multiple years as well as future directions, innovations, or goals of your program and other Albright programs that will be strengthened by this position.

Please think about all of these questions as you prepare your rationale for this new position:

How is this position relevant to the mission, health, and future of the department/program and its curriculum?
How does this position contribute to enhancing the quality of our programs in comparison with peer institutions or national standards for this field of study?
How is the position being (re)defined in response to changes and currents in this academic field? What about changes in your department or more broadly at Albright (majors, new programs, gen ed, SPS)?
Given our goal to build more collaborative and interdisciplinary programming, articulate specific ways that this position will augment another program either outside your department or an interdisciplinary program that your department already contributes to.
How does this position fill in gaps in Albright’s curriculum; complement other offerings; add diversity to the curriculum; provide opportunities for more depth of study in particular areas?
If this position is designed to build curriculum in areas not currently covered by someone in your department or on our faculty, articulate why this area of expertise is needed now and for the long term to enhance learning within the departmentand liberal arts more broadly at Albright.
Given our shortage of FYS and Synthesis courses, how will adding this position enable your department to contribute to these and other areas of our general education curriculum?
Provide additional pragmatic reasons that this position is needed: e.g., increased student interest in the field (demonstrated by full classes and waitlists every year); technical expertise needed to support foundational courses or labs; inability to currently offer sequenced courses.
Briefly articulate stress points or gaps if we are not able to approve this position.
How will this position contribute to the Albright’s mission? And which of your departmental or our common general education learning outcomes are most likely to be enhanced by a faculty position in this area?
Articulate how this position may help build areas of distinctiveness at Albright.
Explain how this would be a strategic hire rather than solely a replacement hire.

Supporting Data Relevant to Teaching and Enrollment

The teaching load at Albright is normally six courses, three each semester. If the proposed teaching load for this position is different, please describe and explain.
Sketch out a two-year teaching plan for this position, including contributions to general education, major requirements, etc.
Based on projection or patterns of enrollment in your department or similar courses, what are the projected enrollments for courses that would be offered by the individual in this position? Please complete the attached template drawing on at least three years of past data.
How would workloads change in the department based on the addition of this position? Would the addition of this position impact a dependency on adjuncts or overloads? Would it provide for more frequent offerings of a course required for certain majors, co-majors, or minors? Would this position lead to more general education courses in a particular area? More flexibility and opportunities for innovative courses? Please provide specific data in responding to these questions.
If your department or program has an accreditation process, how will this new position contribute to accreditation requirements or quality?

Planning Ahead: Existing or Needed Resources

Will our library’s existing resources support this faculty member’s teaching and research needs?
Do we have the needed office space, technology support, lab equipment/space, etc., to support this position? If not, what is needed?
Are there special resources in this region that might be helpful in recruiting someone for this position?

Recruitment

List what publications, university graduate programs, and academic organizations would be the best venues for advertising this position.

If interviewing at a national conference would be important to this process, please name that conference and its annual meeting date.

Albright College

New Full-Time Faculty Request Cover Page

Request Overview

Department home of requested appointment:

Request prepared by:Date Submitted:
Area or field of new appointment:

New position Vacant Position as of ______

Proposed status of position:

 Tenure Track Non-Tenure Track
 Visiting; proposed length ______ Postdoc Other ______

Proposed position rank and title:

Preferred subfields of expertise:

Preferred credentials (e.g., degree, experience, etc.):

Brief job description (crafted as if for an ad):

Contributions to Albright programs more broadly:

List majors, co-majors, and minors this position’s courses would contribute to (either as required or elective courses that would count toward the or minor):

List which Gen Ed areas might be augmented by courses taught by this instructor:

List other programs at the College that would benefit from a faculty member with this area of expertise, e.g., SPS, general education, one or more of our interdisciplinary or preprofessional programs:

List specific Albright learning outcomes and strategic initiatives that would be enhanced by an instructor with this area of expertise?

If this is a replacement for a vacated position, briefly articulate whether a new emphasis is sought with the proposed new hire.

Traditional Program New Faculty Position Proposed Courses for Two Years
(project enrollment based upon three years of past course enrollment data using the Academic Dashboard)
Courses / Type / Acad. Yr. One Enrollment / Acad. Yr. Two Enrollment
Area / Number/Level / Brief Title / Courses* / Fall / Interim / Spring / Fall / Interim / Spring
Sum / Total by Semester / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
*Type Courses: G=General Studies; FYS=First Year Seminar; M=Major; CM=Co-major; MC=Minor; SPS. Enter multiple codes as relevant

Area / Number/level