Performance Play and Design Department: Assistant Teaching Professor of Playable and Participatory Media (REV Initial Review 11-4-24)

The University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) invites applications for a practitioner-educator working in playable and participatory media to join the Performance, Play, and Design Department as an assistant teaching professor. The chosen candidate will serve both the Art & Design: Games + Playable Media degree program within the Performance, Play, and Design Department, and UCSC's interdepartmental Creative Technologies program, a new online- and hybrid-modality undergraduate major, which is the first online bachelors degree program in the University of California system. The selected candidate will collaborate with faculty and staff in the Arts Division to develop research-driven curricula for both programs, and will guide student work in both majors.

Creative Technologies is an interdisciplinary online UCSC Arts Division program offering a justice-focused digital arts and design curriculum, dedicated to advanced, innovative pedagogy, and the cultivation of web-based and hybrid learning communities. Its course of study emphasizes collaborative creative practices, and digital media as a cultural nexus at which creative workers can nurture equity, power, representation, and imagination. Drawing its faculty from multiple departments within the Arts Division, the online program allows UCSC Arts students to transcend genres and the physical space of its campus, bridging geographically and economically remote communities. The first cohort of Creative Technologies students begins its studies in the Fall of 2024.

Performance, Play, and Design is a distinctive interdisciplinary department that blends faculty in theater, performance studies, dance, game design, digital art, music, and interactive media to create a shared environment for creative research at the forefront of performance, play, and design in the fields of games, art, performance and interactive media in the digital and analog realms, with a focus on social justice, impact, and equity. Within this context, faculty continue to grow the Art & Design: Games and Playable Media Program to develop innovative approaches to game design and game creation, to encourage artistic and experimental approaches to play, and to engage with contemporary issues of justice and critical approaches to play and interactivity in order to push the bounds of interactive media.

The selected candidate will demonstrate a successful record of college-/university-level teaching in critical fields related to participatory media. The candidate will show significant promise in teaching innovation, and will have experience with hybrid and/or web-based teaching and learning technologies. The ideal candidate will have significant teaching experience in an online format, as well as experience developing and designing courses that explore, leverage, and benefit from innovative platforms for online pedagogy. The ideal candidate will also demonstrate service and leadership experience, and a capacity to mobilize people and resources toward the cultivation of community and excellence in an evolving interdisciplinary institution. Special consideration may be offered for candidates who have teaching experience in one or more of the following areas: creative coding/coding for artists; interactivity; sound and vision technology; computer vision, audition, and other machine sensing; digital environments; physical computing; movement and performance technologies; and DIY tools. We encourage applicants who engage contemporary issues in media, or technologies of transmission and interaction, design justice and art interventions; and who define their creative work broadly and inclusively, across or transcending traditional disciplinary, genre, or media categories, and who have significant experience in modes of production that center approaches that challenge conventional notions of authorship and audience, or are otherwise intensively collaborative. We welcome and encourage national and international applicants working in any of a wide range of creative practices, including one or more of the general areas described above, but not limited to them. This position is based at UC Santa Cruz, and requires regular in-person presence at the campus, excepting in cases of sabbatical leaves and other leaves of absence. The selected candidate will be expected to serve as program chair of one or both programs in the future.

The Arts Division at the University of California, Santa Cruz seeks candidates for this position who understand barriers facing traditionally underrepresented, marginalized, and historically excluded groups in the classroom and in higher education; who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community; and who have engaged in teaching, research, professional and/or public service contributions that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These contributions may include, but need not be limited to, pedagogical strategies that contribute to the advancement of access and equal opportunity in education and participation in activities that support the recruitment, retention, and success of scholars and students from diverse backgrounds. For more information, see the Arts Division, Department of Performance, Play, and Design, and Creative Technologies DEI statements.

The candidate must provide materials documenting they meet the advertised Basic Qualifications, but we also ask applicants to identify in their application materials if they possess any of the following areas of expertise:

• Demonstrated experience in advanced and innovative approaches to teaching, including teaching in course designs aided and enhanced by digital media
• Demonstrated experience in, and knowledge of, contemporary arts/design practices
• Demonstrated critical engagement with emerging media technologies
• Demonstrated experience working with underrepresented students and communities of color in research, teaching, service, advising, and mentoring

UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic-Serving Institution and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution with a high proportion of first-in-family undergraduate students. The campus supports research and teaching with grants awarded by the Committee on Research, the Committee on Teaching, and other groups. In addition to encouraging participation in robust departmental, divisional, and campus mentoring, the campus offers a Faculty Community Networking Program to support its instructors' development and career advancement.

The campus operates on a schedule of three 11-week quarters per academic year. In accordance with workload policy, PPD teaching professor faculty serve as the primary instructor for six 5-unit courses per year, with an additional two course equivalencies (for eight in total) reserved for service. All faculty are required to undertake administrative service for the department, division, and University, in consultation with their unit chair or director.

The assistant teaching professor title confers the rights and responsibilities of membership in the Academic Senate and the title is analogous to a tenure-track position.

The chosen candidate will be expected to sign a statement representing that they are not the subject of any ongoing investigation or disciplinary proceeding at their current academic institution or place of employment, nor have they in the past ten years been formally disciplined at any academic institution/place of employment. In the event the candidate cannot make this representation, they will be expected to disclose in writing to the hiring Dean the circumstances surrounding any formal discipline that they have received, as well as any current or ongoing investigation or disciplinary process of which they are the subject. (Note that discipline includes a negotiated settlement agreement to resolve a matter related to substantiated misconduct.)

Performance, Play, and Design Department: https://theater.ucsc.edu/

Creative Technologies Program: https://creative.ucsc.edu/

Art & Design: Games and Playable Media Program: https://agpm.ucsc.edu/

Applicants must have a terminal degree (MFA or PhD) in an area of expertise related to Playable and Participatory Media (equivalent foreign degrees will be considered); or a demonstrated record of college or university-level teaching experience and at least six years of a creative practice in performance, play, and design.

For applicants who do not possess the applicable terminal degree when they submit their applications, they must document in their application materials (e.g., c.v., cover letter, etc.) that their projected date for completing their degree will be on or before June 30, 2025.

• 3-5 required (contact information only)

To acknowledge and reduce the labor involved in acquiring letters of recommendation, the hiring unit will request confidential letters* from only the references of those applicants who are under serious consideration. Applicants are advised to speak to potential references in anticipation of a future letter submission request and to advise them that they will need to submit their confidential letters within two weeks of the submission request.

Applicants must provide the names and contact information of their references (a minimum of three references is required and a maximum of five will be permitted). Note that your references, or dossier service, will submit their confidential letters directly to the UC Recruit System.

*All letters will be treated as confidential per University of California policy and California state law. For any reference letter provided via a third party (i.e., dossier service, career center), direct the author to UCSC's confidentiality statement at http://apo.ucsc.edu/confstm.htm

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, or protected veteran status. UC Santa Cruz is committed to excellence through diversity and strives to establish a climate that welcomes, celebrates, and promotes respect for the contributions of all students and employees. Inquiries regarding the University's equal employment opportunity policies may be directed to the Equity and Equal Protection Office at the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 or by email at equity@ucsc.edu.

As a condition of employment, the finalist will be required to disclose if they are subject to any final administrative or judicial decisions within the last seven years determining that they committed any misconduct, are currently being investigated for misconduct, left a position during an investigation for alleged misconduct, or have filed an appeal with a previous employer.

• "Misconduct" means any violation of the policies or laws governing conduct at the applicant's previous place of employment, including, but not limited to, violations of policies or laws prohibiting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other forms of harassment, discrimination, dishonesty, or unethical conduct, as defined by the employer.
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The University of California offers a competitive benefits package and a number of programs to support employee work/life balance.

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