Assistant Professor, Scenic Design

Job Description

Position:
Assistant Professor, Scenic Design. This position is a 9‑month tenure‑earning faculty position with a start date of August 2026.

Salary:
Competitive and commensurate with experience.

The School of Theatre and Dance embraces, inspires, educates, and educates students in all of their capacities as explorative and thoughtful artists who impact their local and global communities. The faculty of the School of Theatre and Dance is comprised of professional creatives, whose work has international reach. Students experience a guest artist series coupled with one‑of‑a‑kind study abroad program in Paris, and research opportunities in dance medicine and science.

Graduates of the dance program go on to enjoy success with the likes of Broadway, Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Complexions Contemporary Dance Company, Kate Weare Dance Company, Disney World, Busch Gardens, and Norwegian Cruise Lines; they perform, design and direct for television and film, become artistic and managing directors, high school teachers, college professors, choreographers, arts in health/somatic practitioners, healthcare professionals, and technical professionals.

The USF School of Theater and Dance fosters and cultivates adaptable thinkers, intelligent, compassionate leaders and creative risk takers who will impact the arts field and beyond.

As the creative center of the University of South Florida, the College of Design, Art & Performance provides an enriched, creative, and professional environment for tomorrow’s leaders in architecture, design, art, art history, dance, music, and theatre. The college is home to the university’s arts district, Contemporary Art Museum, Graphic studio and the Florida Center for Community Design. The college embraces opportunities to embed new and existing arts programming in the rapidly growing regional communities and serves as an integral engine for socioeconomic progress through its research, advocacy, and engagement.

Faculty in the School of Theater and Dance are required to maintain an active research agenda and annually report on progress toward promotion and tenure. As an R1 AAU University, creative activity and research will be expected to be at a national and international level. Teaching responsibilities will generally include 2 assignments per semester, comprised of a combination of designing major productions and course work.

The service profile will be comprised of mentoring students, work on School, College, and/or University committees, professional memberships, and curricular development.

Terminal Degree in related field, or significant equivalent professional experience. Ability to teach scenic design and other design courses, as per your experience and effectively mentor young designers. Ability to design scenery for main stage productions in theatre, dance, and in other Interdisciplinary interests in multiple styles of theatre spaces.

Terminal degree with emphasis in Scenic Design. Incorporation of projections into design and knowledge of projection software and implementation. Teaching experience in scene painting, CAD, and other emerging technologies. Experience in designing for touring to varied spaces, designing for site specific and outdoor locations, themed/entertainment design, immersive theatre, and other genres. National and/or international professional design credits in theatre, dance and /or music.

Interdisciplinary research involving technology, and/or art, music, and health sciences. Must meet university criteria for appointment to the rank of Assistant Professor.

• Letter of interest
• Curriculum vitae
• Links to an online portfolio of work examples. If the works require passwords for viewing, please include them. Files that cannot be easily accessed may not be reviewed.

With approximately 16,000 employees, the University of South Florida is one of the largest employers in the Tampa Bay area. We are dedicated to cultivating a talented, engaged and driven workforce that strives to be bold. Employees excel in USF’s rich academic environment, which fosters their development…