Assistant Professor of Theatre

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Western Washington University, with over 15,000 students in seven colleges and the graduate school, is nationally recognized for its educational programs, students and faculty. The campus is located in Bellingham, Washington, a coastal community of 90,000 overlooking Bellingham Bay, the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades Mountain range. The city lies 90 miles north of Seattle and 60 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Western has additional sites in Anacortes, Bremerton, Everett, Port Angeles, and Poulsbo. Western is recognized nationally for its successes, such as being named one of the top public master's-granting institutions in the Pacific Northwest for 25 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

Western Washington University is committed to achieving excellence through advancing inclusive success, increasing our Washington impact, and focusing on transformational education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences and based on innovative scholarship, research, and creative activity. Western's greatest strength is the outstanding students, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae who make up its community. Western supports an inclusive governance structure for all and provides a learning and working environment in which everyone can thrive.

In pursuit of this excellence, individual employees are expected to establish and maintain productive and effective inclusive working relationships amongst diverse populations including staff, faculty, administration, student, and external constituents. Further, individual employees are expected to have the ability to operationalize sustainability concepts (economic, societal, environmental) into all aspects of performing their job duties.

The College of Fine and Performing Arts and the Department of Theatre and Dance support Western's mission, which states that together with our students, staff, and faculty, we are committed to making a positive impact in the state and the world with a shared focus on academic excellence and inclusive achievement. We encourage applications from women, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans, and other candidates from underrepresented backgrounds and with diverse experiences interested in this opportunity.

The College of Fine and Performing Arts comprises the departments of Art/Art History, Design, Music, and Theatre and Dance, housed in eight buildings with five performance spaces, including a Performing Arts Center overlooking Bellingham Bay. The College also is home to the Music Library and Western Gallery and Public Art Collection, one of the top ten outdoor sculpture collections in the country.

The Department of Theatre and Dance invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Theatre beginning September 16, 2027.

We are seeking a dynamic, collaborative, energetic, creative, and empathetic artist-teacher who wants to be part of an undergraduate-focused theatre department which combines the strengths of a liberal arts program with the rigor of professional practice. The successful candidate will share in our department and university’s strong commitment to cultivate inclusive and equitable learning and creative environments.

The responsibilities of this position include teaching introductory and advanced courses in theatre and performance, primarily Introduction to Theatre, Directing, and Theatre Education, and may include other courses to support our curriculum. This person will be directing productions in our department’s mainstage season, and will be a principal contributor to our vibrant theatre department, collaborating with fellow faculty, mentoring students, and making a significant positive contribution to the life of our department.

The teaching load is between 27 and 30 credits spread over three quarters in the academic year.

The successful candidate will have a demonstrated record of activity in the practice of theatre and/or theatre scholarship. They will be passionate about working with undergraduate students in a liberal arts environment and will be expected to fulfill recruiting, advising, teaching, and mentoring responsibilities that provide equitable and inclusive learning environments for all students.

They will participate in service activities for the department, college, and university, and will maintain an ongoing practice of creative and/or scholarly activity in the discipline.

• One of the following:
  • MFA in Acting, Performance, Directing, Playwrighting or closely related field at time of application; or
  • PhD in Theatre Arts or closely related field at time of application
• Demonstrated ability to cultivate learning and working environments that are equitable and inclusive of students and employees with diverse cultural backgrounds and social identities
• Evidence of successful teaching experience in higher education, and/or commensurate…