Applicants should have an exemplary creative practice and scholarship that are already being recognized for their excellence and impact, and that engage with and contribute to the critical issues and questions of their field today. Evidence of these may include exhibitions, residencies, awards, reviews, publications, and other forms of juried or peer review work, as well as professional and client-based projects comparably recognized.

The successful candidate will be expected to teach introductory through advanced-level undergraduate courses in graphic design and web design in regular rotation. Additional expertise in a secondary area of specialization—such as interaction, accessibility, communication, or user-experience design; data visualization; or design history, theory, and criticism—that will contribute to and deepen the department’s course offerings is desirable. The appointee will also have the opportunity to teach and advise the department’s student-run design studio, Fusion, an interdisciplinary laboratory for impactful community-focused, design-build, and experiential learning projects beyond the classroom. The standard teaching load for tenure-track faculty is two courses per semester.

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, design, and art history—as well as minors in each of these areas, 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.

The department is housed in a 40,000-square-foot teaching and research facility with studio and classroom spaces serviced by the latest technologies and resources, including computer labs, printing facilities, and digital fabrication. 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 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

Less than two hours from New York and an hour from Philadelphia, Lehigh University is a private, highly selective institution ranked among the nation’s top 50 research universities. It serves over 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students from the United States and across the world. It is located in Bethlehem in the Lehigh Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, a region with a low cost of living, high quality of life, and acres of green space, anchored by the cities of Bethlehem, Easton, and Allentown, historic centers of industry and immigration. With a dynamic population of nearly 800,000 residents, the Lehigh Valley is among the state’s fastest growing regions, with a broadening demographic diversity that includes a large Latino population, a significant Black community, and resident populations from India, Korea, Syria, Turkey, and other countries. The university is committed to serving the local community by connecting students, faculty, and staff with local organizations and residents, and has as its mission to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research, and service to others.

Lehigh University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status. We are committed to increasing the diversity of the campus community and are 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://www.lehigh.edu/~inprv/faculty/worklifebalance.html Lehigh University supports dual career efforts for following spouses/partners of newly hired faculty. Learn more about Dual Career Assistance at: https://www.lehigh.edu/~inprv/faculty/dualcareer.html.