Qualifications

The position calls for a candidate with architectural expertise in visualization, fabrication, or contemporary design methods. Applicants should hold a MArch, PhD, or other equivalent terminal degree in architecture or a closely related field. They should have at least one year of teaching experience in the university setting, beyond the level of a teaching assistantship.

Position responsibilities

The successful candidate will join a large and multidisciplinary department with undergraduate BA major programs in art, architecture, graphic and product design, and art history. Through a studio culture that encourages peer engagement, collective critique, and open discourse, the department’s major program in architecture uses the discipline and medium of architecture to foster engagement with the built environment in its critical, technical, and social dimensions.

As a faculty member in the program, the candidate will be expected to teach introductory through advanced-level courses in architectural design in regular rotation, focusing on the candidate’s areas of expertise, including topics of architectural visualization, fabrication, and design technologies. As researchers, they will be expected to develop and maintain an active program of individual scholarship and creative practice that demonstrates excellence and impact, as evidenced by built works, exhibitions, awards, reviews, publications, and other forms of juried or peer-reviewed work, or professional and client-based projects comparably recognized. In both teaching and research, the candidate’s work should be seated in methods that look to make an impact on a range of communities beyond the university and campus setting, serving both disciplinary and public interests. In addition, they will contribute to departmental, college, and university service. The standard teaching load for tenure-track faculty is two courses per semester.

The position offers the opportunity of affiliation with one of the university’s many interdisciplinary programs and centers, with possibilities for further research advancement and collaboration in scholarship and teaching, including cross-listing of courses. These include public-facing centers such as the South Side Initiative; Center for Community Engagement; Office of Community and Public Affairs; Center for Sustainability; and interdisciplinary centers, programs, and majors including the Integrated Degree in Arts, Engineering and Sciences (IDEAS); dual-degree program in Arts and Engineering; Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity, and Innovation; Creative Inquiry; Environmental Studies; Health, Medicine and Society; Africana Studies; Latin American and Latino Studies; Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

About the Department of Art, Architecture and Design

This position is one of four concurrently advertised openings in the Department of Art, Architecture and Design, one of Lehigh University’s largest enrolling undergraduate departments. The department offers BA degrees in four majors—art, architecture, graphic and product design, and art history—and minors in each area, as well as in museum studies and apparel design.

We offer an undergraduate education in the arts that combines the depth of an art and design school training with the breadth and flexibility of a liberal arts curriculum. We aim to enable students to become makers and designers, builders and creators—backed by the resources of a national research university that has for generations helped shape innovation, industry, and design in the United States. We also aspire to excellence and distinction in experiential learning by providing students with opportunities to harness the skills they learn in the classroom, both for real-world application and as the basis for service in the community and the world at large. We are part of the College of Arts and Sciences—the heart of Lehigh University—offering a wide variety of academic majors, minors, and interdisciplinary programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

The department is housed in a 40,000-square-foot research and teaching facility with studio and classroom spaces serviced by extensive resources, encompassing a range of computer labs, printing and digital fabrication technologies, shops, and finishing areas. This includes adjacent resources of the university’s Design Labs, a network of fabrication facilities across campus; and the collections and exhibitions of the Lehigh University Art Galleries (LUAG), with a permanent collection of over 18,000 works of art.

The department is particularly interested in providing support to faculty who approach their work as a means for dialogue, inclusion, remediation, and service in both the university setting and within the community, and who are thinking in innovative ways about the future of their discipline in contemporary and post-pandemic life. It is strongly committed to centering diverse identities and experiences among its faculty and curriculum, and modeling for students of all backgrounds, particularly those from historically underrepresented and structurally marginalized groups, that there is a place and opportunity for them within the arts at both the academic level and in professional life. These values are central to the department’s mission and purpose.

About Lehigh University

Founded in 1865, Lehigh University has combined outstanding academic and learning opportunities with leadership in fostering innovative research. Recognized among the nation's highly ranked research universities, Lehigh offers a rigorous academic community for nearly 7,000 students. Lehigh University has some 5,000 undergraduates, 2,000 graduate students, and about 550 full-time faculty members. Lehigh University is located in Bethlehem, PA., a vibrant and historic area. Over 820,000 people live in the Lehigh Valley, which is in close proximity to New York City and Philadelphia

Lehigh University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital or familial status, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status. We are committed to increasing the diversity of the campus community. Lehigh University is committed to a culturally and intellectually diverse academic community and is especially interested in candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching and/or service, to this mission. Lehigh University is the recipient of an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation award for promoting the careers of women in academic sciences and engineering http://www.lehigh.edu/luadvance and is among institutions of higher education recognized for excellence in diversity with the INSIGHT into Diversity HEED Award. Additional information about Lehigh’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is available at https://diversityandinclusion.lehigh.edu. Lehigh University provides competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits, including domestic partner benefits. More information about Work/Life Balance for Faculty can be found at https://provost.lehigh.edu/work-life-balance. Lehigh University supports dual career efforts for following spouses/partners of newly hired faculty https://dualcareer.lehigh.edu/dual-career.