Assistant Professor in American Literature, Early Period

Position Type:
Assistant Professor in American Literature, Early Period to 1900 Position Type:
Regular Salary Range:
The salary range for this position is $86,284 to $95,901, depending on the successful candidate's years of teaching experience at the college level. The position comes with generous benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance, and University contributions toward retirement. Recognizing the high cost of housing in the local area, there are two University housing assistance programs: rental assistance to ease the transition into the local housing market, and housing purchase assistance for tenure-stream faculty.

Purpose:

The department of English at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit, Catholic university, seeks applicants for a full-time, tenure-track position in Early American literature, covering the colonial period through the 19th century, with additional desirable expertise in environmental humanities and/or literary and cultural theory. SCU is a welcoming and inclusive community of teaching scholars whose work is grounded in the University’s fundamental values.

Those values, which include academic excellence, social justice and community engagement are infused with a culture of care that defines our community—upholding the dignity of all. The University draws on the many resources of the greater Bay Area, including Silicon Valley, where we are located. The Santa Clara University English Department includes a community of scholars, creative writers, teachers, and students who seek to understand and engage the world by activating connections among literature, cultural studies, creative writing, rhetoric, composition, technical and professional communication, and interdisciplinary inquiry.

The department supports work in ethnic studies, media studies, gender and sexuality studies, and digital humanities, and it contributes to interdisciplinary programs in these fields. The successful candidate will start on September 1, 2027 and be expected to teach, engage in scholarship, and do service for the department, college, University, and profession. SCU is on the quarter system and tenure-stream faculty are expected to teach six courses per year (two each quarter), assuming they are actively engaged in scholarship.

Tenure-track faculty at SCU are teaching scholars who are expected to balance teaching, research, and service. This is an in-person position. Faculty duties are governed by SCU’s Faculty Handbook. More specifically, duties include but are not limited to the following.

Teach lower- and upper-division courses in the major and university core curriculum, as assigned by the chair, including courses such as foundation courses for the major, courses in the candidate’s areas of specialization, core writing courses (first-year and advanced writing), and new courses. On average, one-third of the annual teaching assignments will be first-year writing courses. High-quality teaching is prioritized at SCU;

therefore, significant faculty-student interaction is expected.

The University offers many different opportunities to develop teaching skills through Faculty Development, including regular lunchtime workshops on pedagogy, teaching and technology grants, communities of practice, teaching mentors, and a scholarship of teaching and learning faculty group. Teaching will be evaluated according to the Teaching Effectiveness Standards and Evaluation (TESE) document developed by each department. Ignatian pedagogy,…