Assistant Professor of Teaching

JOB TITLE Assistant Professor of Teaching LOCATION Worcester DEPARTMENT NAME Integrative & Global Studies DIVISION NAME Worcester Polytechnic Institute - WPI JOB DESCRIPTION SUMMARY WPI’s Department of Integrative and Global Studies seeks a full-time, tenure track Assistant Professor of Teaching, whose teaching, advising, and scholarly expertise will support WPI’s undergraduate interdisciplinary projects program.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1865to create and convey the latest science and engineering knowledge in ways that are most beneficial to society. Today, WPI holds firm to its founding mission to provide an education that balances theory with practice. WPI's 14 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, business, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees.

The university’s curriculum features a rigorous but flexible program that is project-based and globally-engaged, aimed at quality experience and positive engagement with communities around the world. WPI faculty members work with students on interdisciplinary research and design, addressing important and socially relevant challenges, both on campus and at more than 50 project centers throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.

WPI’s Department of Integrative and Global Studies (DIGS) serves as a gateway for students and faculty to connect with and make a difference in communities around the world. The department is the intellectual home of experiential and community-based learning at the university, providing stewardship for the university’s signature Global Projects Program. The Global Projects Program is an interdisciplinary, project-based learning initiative that engages students in collaborative, community-centered research and problem-solving with local and international partners to address real-world challenges.

It offers a distinctive, interdisciplinary project experience that challenges students to address problems at the intersection of science, technology and society. WPI requires students to work in teams to complete a nine-credit hour project that confronts an open-ended problem at the interface of society and technology, and most students fulfill this requirement through an 8-week term at one of the project centers around the world.

DIGS faculty members advise students through the full arc of these team-based projects. They teach a preparation course on research methods and design thinking; they travel with students and supervise projects at one of the university’s 50+ global project centers; and they help student process these experiences to advance career readiness and lifelong learning. In most cases, faculty co-advise these projects with other faculty members.

The faculty also build on relationships at these global project centers to conduct research on topics such as sustainable food systems, urban planning, innovation and entrepreneurship, conservation, climate resilience, community development, and many other topics, including pedagogical research around project-based and community-engaged learning. DIGS faculty also deliver the first-year project-based learning program, the Great Problems Seminar, which guides students through team-based projects addressing global grand challenges as part of a campus-based course.

WPI’s Department of Integrative and Global Studies seeks a full-time, tenure track Assistant Professor of Teaching, whose teaching, advising, and scholarly expertise will support WPI’s undergraduate interdisciplinary projects program.