committee on academic priorities - bryn mawr college requests for t… · krynn has been...
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Committee on Academic Priorities Tamara Davis, Biology, 2011-12 – 2014-15, Chair 2014-2015 Grace Armstrong, French and Francophone Studies, 2011-12 – 2014-15 Jane Hedley, English, 2012-13 – 2015-16 David Karen, Sociology, 2013-14 – 2016-17 Michael Rock, Economics, 2014-15 – 2017-18 (on leave Semester I) Janet Shapiro, GSSWSR, 2014-15 – 2017-18
October 28, 2014
Dear Colleagues: CAP has received letters of intent to request a position(s) from ten departments and programs – Chemistry, Computer Science, English, Environmental Studies, French and Francophone Studies, German and German Studies, Italian and Italian Studies, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, and one from the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Attached below, please view these preliminary conceptualizations of positions and contact the department(s) or program(s) if you feel that you might want to be part of developing the position request. Best, Tamara (for CAP) Dr. Tamara L. Davis, Ph.D. Professor and Chair Department of Biology Bryn Mawr College
Bill Malachowski
Professor and Chair
Department of Chemistry
Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Ave.
Bryn Mawr, PA. 19010
Phone: 610-526-5016
Fax: 610-526-5086
e-mail: [email protected]
B R Y N M A W R
September 15, 2014
Committee on Academic Priorities
Bryn Mawr College
Dear Colleagues:
With the announcement in May 2014 that our highly valued colleague Krynn Lukacs was going to retire
in May 2015, we realized that we had a significant task ahead of us. With this letter to CAP and the wider
College community, we initiate a process to address the staffing needs of our introductory General
Chemistry laboratories. The general chemistry laboratory course serves 90 to 100 students per semester.
The course is required for several majors and programs, and is part of the regular pre-medical curriculum.
Few of the students taking this course will major in chemistry, less than 20% most years.
Like the parallel position in Biology (currently held by Jennifer Skirkanich), we expect the general
chemistry laboratory course to constitute the entire teaching responsibility for this position. The teaching
comprises four lab sections of 3 hours each. The instructor of this course is responsible for curriculum
development and innovation. The instructor is also required to hire, train, and supervise the teaching
assistants assigned to each section; organize the ordering, preparation, and safe storage of the materials
used in the lab work.
Since this course does not principally serve chemistry majors, it must be attentive to the needs of students
who will go on to major in other fields. Krynn has been extraordinarily effective in this regard,
developing numerous laboratory activities incorporating environmental chemistry, art, plant biology and
geology, collaborating with faculty in related departments along the way. We expect this CNTT to
continue to contribute to the development of a vibrant, evolving, integrated and interdisciplinary
introductory laboratory curriculum. With these curricular activities in mind, we would envision the
Biology and Geology Departments and Environmental Studies Program being interested in the
planning for the general chemistry laboratory instructor.
In addition to curricular innovation, the General Chemistry CNTT would have important service
commitments to the College community and the Department. Krynn has done an exceptional job as the
primary Chemistry Department Major Advisor and we hope this CNTT would also participate in our
advising structure.
It should be noted that the teaching load for the general chemistry laboratory instructor is set with the
safety of the students and the continuing maintenance and development of laboratory materials and
instruction in mind. The materials and techniques utilized in this course include corrosive and flammable
chemicals, sharp objects, open flames and many other hazards. Learning how to safely work with these
dangerous materials is an integral part of scientific training and education. The chemistry department
takes the safety of our students very seriously. Teaching more than the proposed four sections would
directly compromise our students’ safety when overstretched instructors cannot provide adequate
supervision and indirectly when instructors do not have the time to be aware of changing safety guidelines
and standards.
It has been suggested that this CNTT also take on responsibilities for teaching in the summer post-
baccalaureate program. This is a substantial commitment of effort, five weeks of summer teaching is
nearly equivalent to a full semester’s teaching in the academic year (the Provost sets this as 1.75 CE); the
course enrolls 70 students each term in the summer. As the academic year responsibilities for this CNTT
constitute a full-time position, we believe that the summer should not be included as part of this position.
We are concerned about issues of equity as there are no comparable positions on this campus. Also the
additional workload would preclude this CNTT from having sufficient time to properly prepare to serve
the needs of the undergraduate population. We fear making a summer contribution voluntary, or even
bringing up the possibility during the search process, risks exploiting candidates and new faculty
members who may not feel in a position to say “no” to additional duties. While we are open to a dialog
about how to staff the summer portion of the post-baccalaureate program, we do not believe that this
position is the appropriate way to address these needs.
In conclusion, the Chemistry Department requests a General Chemistry CNTT position to teach the
introductory chemistry labs. This CNTT would be expected to develop an innovative interdisciplinary
curriculum, and to contribute to service activities in both the Department and the College. We welcome
feedback from the College community.
Sincerely,
Bill Malachowski Sharon Burgmayer Michelle Francl Susan White
Maryellen Nerz-Stormes Jonas Goldsmith Jason Schmink Yan Kung
Dianna Xu
Associate Professor and Chair of Computer Science
Bryn Mawr College
101 North Merion Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899
610-526-6502
September 17, 2014 Committee on Academic Priorities Dear Colleagues, At the recommendation of the former provost Kim Cassidy, the Computer Science Department is preparing a request for a new tenure-‐track appointment in Core CS (Theory/Algorithms or Systems) beginning in the academic year 2016-‐17. The department has had a three-‐year interim faculty position since 2010, with the current 3-‐year term ending on June 30, 2016. In addition, the department has also relied on support from numerous adjunct positions over the years for additional course coverage (spring2010, spring2011, fall2011, spring2012, fall2012, spring2013 and fall2014). The growth in Computer Science at both Bryn Mawr and Haverford in the recent years has created consistent and widespread staffing difficulties in our department. On average, the number of Computer Science majors has doubled at Bryn Mawr College and quadrupled at Haverford College. In addition, the proliferation of computational and data driven methods in the natural sciences as well as elsewhere (e.g. digital humanities, data science, computational linguistics) has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of minors and consequently put high enrollment pressures on our lower level courses. Particularly impacted are our introductory sequence of CMSC B110 (Introduction to Computing), CMSC B206 (Data Structures) and CMSC B231 (Discrete Mathematics). CMSC B110 is now offered in 2-‐3 sections every semester, with all sections consistently over-‐enrolled and needing lotteries. Even with an average of 5 sections per academic year, we have not been able to meet the demands of the freshmen class or save seats for upper-‐class students. CMSC B206 has moved from once a year to every semester starting in fall 2011, and CMSC B231 has just moved to every semester starting in fall 2014 because the enrollment was consistently 40+ year over year, despite the addition of CMSC B110 as a pre-‐requisite which significantly reduced enrollment from math students, a consequence the Computer Science department feels could undermine the long history of collaboration between the two departments, and in particular where this course is concerned (the redesign of Discrete Mathematics that resulted in much of its popularity was a joint effort between Rhonda Hughes of Mathematics and Dianna Xu of Computer Science in 2008 and 2009). Our enrollment increase started rapidly in 2008-‐2009 and has not let off despite efforts to control, such as capping and adding pre-‐requisites. After discussions with the Provost Office in fall 2012 and spring 2013, we were granted a second 3-‐year interim position and advised that we should plan on submitting a tenure track proposal to grow the department during this next interim phase. We believe that reasons for the recent and rapidly evolving interest in Computer Science include:
• Frequent and groundbreaking new applications of Computer Science
• Discovering models and methods found in computing that are useful in explaining and exploring the natural world and the human society
• Integration of computer and information technology in the daily lives of an increasing number of people
• Ubiquity, including embedded systems and mobile devices We believe these factors to continue and likely to grow in importance and thus our enrollment trend is unlikely to reverse. We seek a tenure-‐track appointment because we believe computing is a growth area for the foreseeable future. We are the smallest CS department by faculty size among peer institutions and national trend strongly supports our experience of enrollment growth. In fact, Bryn Mawr CS appears to lag the national average by a margin despite the recent increases. Given the increasing pervasiveness of computing in many disciplines, there is a need for the college as a whole to think long term about strategic directions for the curriculum, the scholarship of its faculty, and its impact on our future students. A tenure-‐track appointment will allow us to attract strong candidates in the extremely competitive market suffering from intense pressure from the tech industry. The right candidate will strengthen the department by bringing cutting-‐edge research and course coverage in the core and round out the expertise of existing faculty in various application areas. This will also free staffing to explore certain interdisciplinary efforts, such as the new joint course already under discussion with Biology -‐ “Introduction to Computing for Biologists” – an effort to encourage and accommodate student interest in Computational Biology; the Cognitive Science program in discussion with Philosophy and Psychology; or the computational STEM learning initiative supported by the TIDES grant led by Physics. List of departments and individuals to be involved in conceptualizing this position:
1. Haverford Computer Science o David Wonnacott
2. Biology o Tamara Davis, Sydne Record, Joshua Shapiro
3. Mathematics o Leslie Cheng
4. Philosophy o Bob Dostal, Adrienne Prettyman
5. Psychology o Marc Schulz
6. Physics o Michael Schulz, Elizabeth McCormack
We welcome Bryn Mawr community feedback on this plan and look forward to discussions with CAP and affiliated departments.
Sincerely,
for the Department of Computer Science
Kate Thomas Associate Professor Department of English Bryn Mawr College 101 North Merion Avenue Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899
BR YN M A WR
TO: Committee on Academic Priorities FROM: Kate Thomas, Chair September 16, 2014
RE: REQUEST FOR TWO TENURE TRACK POSITIONS The Department of English wishes to begin the process of requesting authorization to search for two tenure track positions. With the recent, unexpected departure of Katherine Rowe to be provost at Smith College and the upcoming retirement of Jane Hedley at the end of academic year 2015-16, we are losing our two Early Modern specialists. Katherine had recently expanded into the field of digital humanities, and Jane expanded her training in Renaissance lyric to become an expert in modern poetic forms, as well. The parallel departure of Karl Kirchwey in Creative Writing, who sometimes taught scholarly poetics courses in the English Department, has compounded this loss; we will soon be an English department that teaches neither Shakespeare and his world, nor poetry and poetics. We therefore feel that we have an immediate and urgent need in the specific areas of 1) Early Modern Literature (including Shakespeare), and 2) poetry and poetics. We hope to use these two hires to cover these losses, which are great, but also to realign and expand our department’s offerings. While any English Department must have an Early Modernist, we appreciate that we may no longer have the luxury of supporting two. We would like to separate the focus on poetry away from the focus on Early Modern Studies. We hope to use a hire in poetics to push our departmental coverage more firmly into the present and future of literary form. Our department will soon be very heavily junior, and we see making two hires, in conscious relationship to one another, as an opportunity to develop an exciting and well-thought-out vision of a future-oriented English curriculum. We would like to hire the Early Modernist first, in academic year 2015-16. We hope to hire a scholar who is able to teach Shakespeare, but who will also bring specializations in globalization and diaspora, race, ethnicity, and conditions of colonialism, all of which were emergent ideas and fascinations for writers in English in the late 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Ideally, this scholar’s work would be comparatist in nature, engaging, for example, Islamic or Hispanophone connections. They might equally work between Anglophone and South Asian, East Asian or African literatures. Interests in gender and performativity would also be welcome.
Courses offered by this scholar would anchor the historical reach of our departmental offerings from medieval to contemporary, and broaden our department’s commitment to the study of race, ethnicity and the colonial/post-colonial realities of Anglophone literary expansion across the past five centuries. We hope to be approved at this time for another line, to be searched for in AY16-17. Jane will have retired, but our new Early Modernist will be on board, and their fresh eye will be invaluable in searching for a scholar whose work, we hope, will help carry our coverage of the literary into the future. Poetry, often misunderstood as an out-dated genre, is in fact resurgent and indeed, compact and allusive language could be said to organize our students’ daily encounter with text more than ever. Song lyrics are now, as ever, at the heart of the vernacular literary inheritance of young people. But the internet has vastly expanded the formal structures of textual production, and our students arrive at Bryn Mawr fluent in the new short, formally constrictive and wildly creative forms of internet-based reading, writing and interacting (texting, tweeting, tumblr, vine, etc). They are, in other words, steeped in practices akin to those found at the cutting edge of literary expression. This hire would meet them where they are, and train them for the future. The English major is structured along several axes, and form and method are as important as period. We consider the study of poetry to be the foundation stone of any literary training, and we have leaned hard on our Early Modernists for this expertise. Dividing the Early Modern position from this poetry line would allow us to hire a scholar who would help our students theorize futures and multiple media for poetry, as well past forms and functions. This line would therefore be formally, rather than historically, delineated and would anchor our department’s extant commitments to form and the history of print and visual media: we have regularly offered courses in the history of representation and its transformations, reaching from the invention of the codex to the revolutions of cinema and the internet. Obviously any scholar trained in poetics will also have an historical and national focus. We hope to encounter a wide range of specializations in our candidates, and have the opportunity to make a hire that would enrich curricula offerings both within our department and the college as a whole. We believe that the search terms for both of these lines may well produce candidates who expand the college’s commitments to diversity of both curriculum and persons. Both of these lines have robust potential to connect across the campus to our colleagues’ work in other fields. We plan to reach out to Creative Writing, Comparative Literature, Africana, Film Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies to discuss how these hires might contribute to and be supported by these programs. I have also begun discussing bi-co curricula needs with the chair of Haverford’s English Department. I look forward to our conversations.
To: Committee on Academic Priorities From: Environmental Studies Program, Victor Donnay, Director 1 September 17, 2014 The Environmental Studies program requests the creation of a tenure-track position to provide stability to our growing program. The Environmental Studies program offers a six course minor which includes two required core courses: Introduction to Environmental Studies (ENVS 101) and the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar (ENVS 397). Students also take four electives chosen from our roster of approved courses. With the recent creation of the Tri-College Environmental Studies minor, we are able to offer a rich and diverse set of elective offerings drawing on the expertise of many faculty members from across the three colleges. At present there is only a single faculty member whose appointment formally includes more than a single-course commitment to the Environmental Studies program (Ellen Stroud). Don Barber was hired with the express expectation that he would also offer significant support to Environmental Studies, and he and the Geology Department have always made that work. Other faculty members who have been hired with the support of the Environmental Studies program and the expectation of significant contributions to the program have not always been able to offer such contributions due to the needs of their home department. In every case, faculty members’ primary obligations necessarily rest with their tenure home departments. Thus it is a continual challenge to staff the two core courses, which the Tri-Co ENVS program has committed to offering every year on all three campuses, and also difficult to provide stability and predictability in the offering of coherent clusters and sequences of electives. While faculty with many different areas of expertise in environmental studies could meet our staffing needs for the Introductory and Senior Seminar courses, we are particularly interested in filling this position with a faculty member whose research and teaching interests involve the visual representation of quantitative and qualitative data. A geographer, an historian, or a natural scientist with expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), for example, could be ideal. We focus on GIS expertise for several reasons. GIS has become a crucial part of many academic programs and there is high demand for courses in this field. For more than 5 years, we have offered courses in this area, which have always been oversubscribed. We have staffed these courses in a variety of ad hoc ways by finding adjuncts. Most recently, the Tri-Co has had the benefit of a Mellon grant, based at 1 Current membership of the Environmental Studies steering committee includes: Don Barber, GEOL; Peter Briggs, ENGL; Jonas Goldsmith, CHEM (on leave); Carol Hager, POLS; Tom Mozdzer, BIOL; David Ross, ECON; Ellen Stroud, CITY , Nate Wright, SOC.
Swarthmore, through which we have a three-year position in GIS that is shared between the three institutions. This position was initially held by Megan Heckert, who after holding the position for two years, has left to take up a tenure track position in GIS in the Geography Department at West Chester University. The third year of the position is being filled by Ganapathy Narayanaraj. These faculty members are social scientists with strong backgrounds in GIS developed to facilitate and strengthen their social sciences research. Megan Heckert’s presence on our campus, in particular, brought into high relief the hunger our students have not simply to learn the tools of particular mapping programs (which change all the time) but also to become more sophisticated in the use of spatial analysis in their own scholarship. Megan Heckert’s introductory courses were very popular, but her thematic seminars were revolutionary for students who were able to take them. The structure of the Mellon grant has had the faculty member on this line teaching four GIS courses per year: an introductory course on each of the three campuses and one advanced thematic course. These classes have all been filled to capacity; so much so that in 2012-13, Bryn Mawr offered an additional introductory GIS course taught by David Consiglio from Informational Technologies (who has taught sections of GIS in the past). Even when Megan Heckert offered the advanced course at the Swarthmore campus, a full third of her students were from Bryn Mawr (and another third from Haverford, with a long waiting list as well). Geospatial data analysis is an interdisciplinary field serving the needs of many departments on campus including Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology, Computer Science, Economics, Geology, Growth and Structure of Cities, Political Science and Sociology. The techniques of GIS are also used extensively in public health research. Therefore there could also be interest from the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research in such a position. In the fields of Economics, Political Science and Sociology, GIS is used extensively for the analysis of demographic data such as US Census data. Remote sensing, such as satellite image analysis, is another aspect of GIS that is extensively used by scientists in biology and geology, as well as physical anthropology and archaeology. The field of GIS also includes data mining and data visualization techniques developed by computer scientists; these applications are used extensively by all of the fields mentioned above. We anticipate that this faculty member would teach: (i) introductory and advanced courses in geospatial analysis (including GIS); (ii) core courses required for the Environmental Studies Minor, in regular rotation with other faculty members; and (iii) intermediate- and advanced-level courses within their discipline (which would likely overlap with the offerings in Geospatial analysis). We will be talking with faculty members in the many departments listed above as we move forward with this proposal. We also anticipate involving Gina Siesing in our discussions; Gina has expertise in GIS issues from her previous position at Tufts
and provided helpful insights over the summer as we carried out the search for the one-year Mellon position in GIS. There have been past efforts at the college to support the need for GIS instruction. In 2007, the college developed a preliminary proposal (not funded) to the Keck Foundation to develop a GIS Center. The proposal to Keck was developed after several years during which individual departments (Archaeology, Biology, Cities and Geology) had struggled to adequately meet the GIS instruction needs of their students. We note this by way of emphasizing the long history of demonstrated need for faculty expertise in the fields of geospatial data analysis and GIS. An additional benefit of this tenure-track position is that by providing more dedicated staffing for the Environmental Studies introductory and senior seminar courses, both this faculty member and others participating in the program could have more predictable schedules, offering both core courses and Environmental Studies electives on a regular basis. This would allow us to offer students a more coherent program, with more advanced offerings across the board. A major issue we have been grappling with in defining this new tenure track position is determining the home department of the faculty member. One option is that their home would be in Environmental Studies. This approach would have the benefit of clearly focusing the faculty member’s time and attention on the Environmental Studies program. She would not be subjected to divided loyalties and conflicting demands on her time. Such an arrangement would have the drawback that the faculty member would be the only full-time member of the Environmental Studies program, and we are aware of concerns that this could complicate the tenure process. Another option, which has its own benefits and drawbacks, is for the new faculty member to be appointed jointly in Environmental Studies and another department, and to be housed in that home department. This was the procedure when Ellen Stroud was hired. The choice of department would be contingent on the specific expertise of the candidate who is hired. Members of the Environmental Studies program look forward to discussions with CAP and with our faculty colleagues from around the Tri-Co about this important interdisciplinary position.
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Department of French and Francophone Studies Bryn Mawr College 101 N. Merion Avenue Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899 (610) 526-5083 (610) 526-7479 (fax)
B R Y N M A W R September 27, 2014 Professor Tamara Davis, Chair, CAP Linda Livesay, Taylor Dear Tamara and Colleagues, I am writing on behalf of colleagues in the Department of French and Francophone Studies to make the initial request for a CNTT position in the Regular French language and culture track. This position was held by Benjamin Cherel until his resignation in II, 2014. We are redefining it slightly in light of new technologies and newly recognized needs, but the core responsibilities of the position remain the following:
teaching one section of regular Elementary (Fr 001-002) each semester and overseeing the colleague entrusted with the second section
teaching one section of regular Intermediate each semester (Fr 003-004), coordinating the three others taught by TT faculty each semester on the BMC and HC campus, and training the undergraduate T.A.’s for both campuses
teaching either the sixth-semester culture course Fr 105 Directions de la France contemporaine OR Fr 251 La Mosaïque France or their equivalents
overseeing the French Placement test (now taken online during the summer) and
evaluating the results The need continues to be great for a faculty member with a long-term commitment to the College to oversee the population of students who, because of their other curricular demands, wish to acquire French at a normal speed (i.e. 5 hrs./week in Elementary, 4 hrs./week in Intermediate). The number of students registered this year and in the past in regular 001-002 always tops 30. Given Bryn Mawr’s requirement that students study one year of a foreign language at their level of placement, this need will continue, especially since French is not as widely or well taught in American high schools as in the past and since pre-med students who hope to work in Africa (an important subgroup of regular Elementary students) know that they will need to acquire French. These pre-med students or others interested in public health typically take the regular track because of their time commitment to science study. As you know from CAP’s approval in 2011 of our other CNTT position in the intensive language/literature and culture track, the department also attracts a second population of students, who wish to accelerate their acquisition of linguistic and cultural proficiency so as to complete 5 semesters in three, study in Francophone countries during junior year, and major or double-major. Some graduates of the regular track also choose to major, or more usually, minor in French, with experience in study abroad either during the AY or the summer at our Avignon Institut.
In discussing the definition of the position, department faculty have voiced a preference for a language/culture pedagogue who has:
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experience in the most recent technologies related to language teaching and who could serve as a resource person not only for French colleagues but for other languages as well
experience with various media, especially film training/accreditation (or is willing to obtain training/accreditation) in the ACTFL
(American Council of Foreign Language Teaching) program of Oral Proficiency Testing. Given the College’s increasing emphasis on assessment and our departmental commitment to it (we were selected last year as one of the Teagle departments), such expertise would allow us to do this kind of assessment (which we cannot now perform) at the 200- and 300-levels without having to pay the considerable annual expenses of bringing in an outside Tester. At present, there is, we believe, no certified ACTFL tester in any language department at the College, and, obviously, her/his expertise would well serve faculty colleagues in other languages.
enthusiasm for and experience in leading co-curricular activities
With respect to attracting the most diverse group of candidates, the department already considers that a course in the successful candidate’s portfolio on the diversity of Metropolitan France and Francophone culture is a sine qua non. Our current offering Fr 251 La Mosaïque France (or a variation thereof), which we would expect the successful candidate to teach, demonstrates our commitment to study of the complex ways that France’s colonial and postcolonial history has transformed what was once a quite homogeneous society into a multiethnic, multicultural, heterogeneous country. The existence of this course, as well as the feeder course, Fr 105 Directions de la France contemporaine, which is a broader socio-political study and another possible course for the successful candidate, clearly announces our commitment to diversity, along with the courses already offered by BMC department faculty on West, Central, and North African literature, culture, and port cities. Such a curriculum broadcasts its welcome to diversity candidates, who would, of course, have the liberty to create new courses according to their interests. We will be applying to Linda Livesay for access to the CFD listing to see if any candidate fits this pedagogical need.
In closing , we would like to note that the position, as defined, would clearly benefit other language departments and Film Studies. Undoubtedly, candidates with other backgrounds (B. Cherel was a pedagogue with a degree in Sociology) could bring unexpectedly rich connections with other programs.
Sincerely, for the Department,
E. M. Schenck 1907 Professor of French Chair, French and Francophone Studies Co-ordinator, Middle Eastern Languages
October 6, 2014 Dear Professor Tamara Davis and Members of the Committee on Academic Priorities, While I originally intended to request a CNTT in German language for purposes of stabilizing the core component of the program, upon consultation with my colleague Professor Ulrich Schönherr, the chair of German at Haverford, I am “updating” the request to a TT position. The justification for a TT request is further based on the CAP recommendation of the addendum to the 2010-2011 CAP report to the faculty, dated November 29, 2011. According to the report, CAP and the then chair of the Department, Professor Imke Meyer, “agreed that, to maintain the scholarship profile of the department, the two positions (the tenure-track and interim position) would be folded together to create a tenure-track position.” The addendum also states “that when the tenure-track faculty departure or retirement occurs, there would be a three-year transition timeline” (p. 2). While neither Professor Schönherr nor I could attend the meeting, where this discussion about the future of the Department took place, Professor Meyer informed us of the content of the proceedings. In the light of the above, our request is one of the implementation of the plan prescribed by CAP itself. We are in the second year of the transition timeline. The AY 2015-2016 will be the third year and will mark the search for the TT as well as the end of the final contract for our interim David Kenosian. In sum, we are requesting a replacement and not an additional TT position in German at Bryn Mawr. At the present, the German program across the two colleges shows a strong scholarly profile of both disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary breadth. The two senior professors Schönherr and Seyhan teach and publish in all the major periods of German literature and culture from the 18th century to the present. Furthermore, since his arrival at Haverford, Schönherr has contributed extensively and creatively to the curriculum of Haverford College’s Department of Music. Schönherr and I also serve on the Steering Committee of the Bi-College Program in Comparative Literature and are called upon to teach its core designated courses, Introduction to Comparative Literature, Theories and Methods in Comparative Literature, and the Senior Seminar on a regular basis. I am affiliated faculty in Philosophy at Bryn Mawr with three cross-listed courses regularly offered in that department and am also a faculty member and advisor in International Studies (two of my courses were designated as IS electives at the inception of the major) as well as in Middle Eastern Studies. Professor Imke Brust at Haverford German has recently been reappointed and, after returning from her junior research leave in fall 2015, will continue to offer courses in German literature and film, Comparative Literature, and Postcolonial and Africana Studies with a focus on issues of nationalism and globalization, which also complement my additional teaching and research areas in exile and diaspora studies.
While we represent a broad teaching and scholarly range and contribute in significant ways to other departments and programs in the Bi-College community, we have identified a number of areas not covered by the existing faculty. These are German-Jewish Studies, Global Cities, European Studies within the larger context of International Studies, History, and History of Art, among others. I met with my Haverford colleagues Imke Brust and Ulrich Schönherr on October 2 and 3, respectively, and we agreed that the Department will be looking for a generalist with interest in one or more of these areas and who is also prepared to teach all levels of language courses. The fact that our faculty has been able to offer a strong curriculum with disciplinary grounding as well as indisputable interdisciplinary range, sustain sizeable enrollments and a fair number of majors/minors across the two colleges, and faculty productivity of high visibility warrants the replacement position. With two TTs at BMC and two TTs at HC, German and German Studies will be able to sustain the leading role it has played in curricular development, inter/disciplinary rigor, and student achievement. We are looking forward to our listening discussion with CAP. Respectfully submitted, Azade Seyhan, PhD Fairbank Professor in the Humanities Professor of German and Comparative Literature
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September 16th, 2014
TO: CAP
FROM: Roberta Ricci, Chair of Italian and Italian Studies
RE: Request for a tenure-track position
The Italian and Italian Studies Department requests authorization to search for a tenure-track
position in modern Italian literature and studies from the 19th century to the present that can
contribute to scholarly interests intersecting with cinema, critical theory, comparative
literature, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, European Studies, Mediterranean Studies, and Translation
Studies. The department needs this position in order to teach first and second year language
courses, upper level seminars and to continue to serve students who wish to pursue a major in
either Italian Language and Literature (ILL major, Track A, the majority of our students) or in
Italian Cultural Studies (ICS major, Track B). To support the College’s interdisciplinary
initiatives, this is the second year that our Department has implemented an Italian Studies
component as an alternate major (approved by CC in Spring 2013). We have considered
alternative staffing approaches in the past, but because we have no counterpart in the Tri-College
community and due to Nicholas Patruno’s retirement in 2008, a replacement for his tenure-track
position is the only viable option. This position would put into practice Italian Studies as broadly
conceived.
With this outline of the concept, I intend to address our current situation as well as our long-term
departmental needs to justify the request. BMC is the only campus in the TRICO community to
offer a major/minor in Italian and Italian Studies as we continue to serve both Haverford and
Swarthmore students who wish to study Italian either to pursue a major/minor in Italian or Italian
studies or as one language component within the Romance Languages major or as one literature
component within the Comparative Literature major or within the new International Studies
major or the Medieval Studies Program (please visit our website
http://www.brynmawr.edu/italian/: How can I study Italian at BMC?). The Italian Studies
Department's request for this position represents a significantly rethought discussion and
supersedes the proposal that we sent to CAP previously. It is also informed by the intense and
fruitful dialogue the department held over the past several years about curricular changes and a
new interdisciplinary directive that transformed us into an Italian Studies Department.
I have been relying on interim positions since 2008, when Nicholas Patruno retired. In recent
years I have chaired two searches for full time interim positions in language and literature and I
now rely on a visiting assistant professor (with a six course teaching load) and a part time
position (two courses a year) to cover Italian and Italian Studies courses. This position will finally
enable the college to stop the constant hiring of interim faculty and thus provide our students
steadier pedagogical continuity.
I will begin consulting with other departments/programs to conceptualize this position and in my
full proposal I will provide letters of support from other chairs/directors. I hope to obtain support
from Comparative Literature (both directors at BMC and at HC, since this is a BICO program),
Gender and Sexuality Studies, Film Studies, Romance Languages, International Studies, Health
Studies, Praxis Program. Though we have not been able to include Swarthmore in past
deliberations, there may be an opportunity to do so with this proposal.
I came to Bryn Mawr in 2004. The number of full-time faculty tenured members in Italian has
remained at two from at least 1965, in addition to one full time lecturer. Since the retirement of
Patruno, I have been the only tenured faculty member performing a variety of tasks: creating new
interdisciplinary courses (ITAL 380, ITAL 307, ITAL 235, ITAL 299, ITAL 255, ITAL 229),
serving on committees and national searches in the Humanities, advising majors/minors, directing
2
theses, co-directing the Romance Languages Program and serving as interim Chair of Film
Studies, representing Italian within the BICO Comparative Literature committee, locating
international internships for our majors, organizing Scholarships/Internships events with various
Italian Institutions, including the Italian Consulate (thanks to which we just obtained a
competitive National Grant from the Italian Ministry of Education and Foreign Affairs to support
our program). In view of all these necessary tasks, there is a glaring need for an additional tenure-
track position to maintain academic and administrative continuity for both faculty and students, to
fostering community, and to create a global focus at the intersection with other fields (i.e. health,
philosophy, sociology, as well as intellectual history).
Our department currently has an average of 100 students a year. In this, our numbers are similar,
if not higher, to those of sister colleges and other schools (i.e. Smith, Holyoke) of similar
enrollment size. Each semester we offer:
-four sessions of Elementary Italian (two sessions at BMC taught by Monserrati, two
sessions at HC sponsored by HC), ITAL 001-002
-one session of Intermediate Italian (taught by Ricci), ITAL 101-102
-three upper level courses, which cover usually a) one literature course cross-listed with
Comparative Literature/Film Studies/Theory/Gender Studies/International Studies taught in
English (Monserrati); b) one Italian literature course taught in Italian cross-listed with Films
Studies and Gender Studies (Ricci); c) one Italian Architecture/Art History/Cities course taught in
English, cross-listed with Art History and Cities (Harper).
We believe that, with such a variety of foci, we strongly and consistently contribute to the
interdisciplinary offerings of the college and also to the various programs intersecting with the
Humanities, including the new Health Studies Program (with ITAL 208/ITAL 303), International
Studies (ITAL 212), Gender Studies (almost all our courses), which are areas in which students
have a strong interest. For the second consecutive year we are offering ITAL 213: Theory in
Practice, that most of the humanities and language departments count for credits (cross-listed with
Italian, English, French, German, Russian, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Art History and
Film Studies). Examples of our strong commitment to interdisciplinary studies and collegiality
are also a number of popular courses taught in cross-listing: 1) ITAL 212: Italy Today: New
Voices, New Writers, New Literature, Cross-listed as COML B214 and counts toward Gender
and Sexuality Studies, Film Studies, International Studies, Praxis, 2) ITAL 215: The City of
Naples, Cross-listed as HART 216, Cross-listed as CITY 216, 3) ITAL 330: Architecture and
Identity in Italy: Renaissance to the Present, Cross-listed as HART B330, Cross-listed as CITY
330, 4) ITAL 211: Primo Levi, the Holocaust, and Its Aftermath, Cross-listed as HEBR 211,
Cross-listed as COML B211, 5) ITAL 225: Italian Cinema and Literary Adaptation, counts
towards Film Studies, 6) ITAL 299: Grief, Sexuality, Identity, counts toward Film Studies and
Gender Studies. The department has also been strongly committed to Praxis (ITAL 101-102:
Intermediate Italian; ITAL 201: Italian Culture and Society: Music and Language; ITAL 202,
Italian Culture and Society: Icons or Stereotypes?; ITAL 200: Italian: Pathways to Proficiency;
ITAL 212: Italy Today). The department has also contributed to the E-Sem courses and is
planning on proposing a 360 course. This new tenure-track position will allow us to continue our
commitment to a transdisciplinary model of higher-learning, as well as to serve our students with
a strong interest in language and literature.
In line with nationwide trends for the past several years, the enrollment in Italian and Italian
Studies at BMC (as well as at HC) has been on the rise and all indications are that this will
continue in the years ahead. I will provide documentation in this regard. We in the Italian Studies
Department believe that, for the reasons stated above as well as the increased enrollment, our
request for this position is justified and we respectfully look forward to meeting in person with
CAP to discuss in more detail the future of our department and provide additional documentation.
October 6, 2014
Tamara and the Committee on Academic Priorities:
With this email I would like to initiate the process whereby the Philosophy Department requests
authorization to search for a tenure track position. This request follows upon our request last year
for two tenure track positions. One was authorized and the search has begun. The second request
was not acted upon. We bring you that request again.
This request is prompted by the retirement of Professor Michael Krausz who is in his last semester
of teaching. The department understands that there are no routine replacements. In our fuller
application for authorization of these two searches, we will justify this search. For the past twenty
years approximately, we have been a department of four fulltime tenure-track faculty. (When I
came to the College in 1980, there were six tenure track positions in philosophy.)
I don't know that it is necessary to describe the current profile of the philosophy department since
we did so last year but since there are new members on CAP, I will do so briefly. I will also point out
how this appointment will support and intersect with other departments and programs.
Adrienne Prettyman specializes in the philosophy of mind and will contribute to the neuroscience
program at the College, working with faculty and students in psychology and biology.
Robert Dostal teaches a broad range of courses in the history of philosophy, including ancient Greek
philosophy but especially in the so-called "continental" tradition including seminars on Kant, Hegel,
and 20th century phenomenology. These seminars have regularly attracted graduate students in
the history of art. I also teach occasionally the interdisciplinary and much cross-listed "Theory in
Practice" course that most of the humanities and language departments count for credit and which I
helped create. I am also taking over the Environmental Ethics course which contributes to the
College's Environmental Studies program. Last spring the Environmental Ethics course was part of
a very successful 360 (with economics and East Asian Studies/history) that had a particular focus
on China. We would like to repeat this 360. I have also regularly taught an Emily Balch Seminar.
We are currently searching for an ethicist who takes a global view and has a serious interest in
feminist theory. This position will serve many students outside the major in the annually taught
200 level ethics course. This position will contribute to International Studies and to the Gender and
Sexuality program.
Michael Krausz has taught a broad range of courses that include aesthetics, theory of knowledge,
philosophy of science, and courses that concern themselves with questions of interpretation and
cultural difference. Over the years he has co-taught courses with anthropologists, biologists, and
physicists. Most recently, he has been teaching with Liz McCormack (physics) a course on physics
and the philosophy of science. Students in the history of art and in the fine arts regularly enroll in
his aesthetics class.
The department requests authorization to search next year for a junior tenure track position. There
are two candidate position descriptions which compete for this position in the eyes of the
department. We spoke briefly about this with CAP last year.
The first would be a position in the philosophy of science. Someone with this speciality could teach
some of the core courses in the major and would complement the work of Adrienne Prettyman in
the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. In addition, such a
person could serve well the science programs by giving students majoring in the sciences an
opportunity to reflect philosophically on what it is they are doing when they do science. Krausz was
able to successfully do this by co-teaching a course with a scientist (in recent years with Paul
Grobstein and more recently with Liz McCormack). The enrollments were not always high though
there were reasonable enrollments. The course was typically a 300 level course that we presume
discouraged some students from enrolling. The new hire would be advised to offer a 200 level
philosophy course that would not be as daunting. In addition, we think it good if the philosopher of
science we hire would be knowledgeable about the history of science and be able to connect the
scientific endeavor to culture and society in a global context. Since Bryn Mawr is proud of its
offerings in science and its success in educating women scientists, it would be good for the
philosophy department to contribute toward this in an important way.
The second possibility for the definition of this position would be a comparativist position in
Western and Eastern thought. There is no one in the College or even in the Bi-Co that teaches
important Eastern, especially Chinese, texts. We do not think it appropriate for reasons we will
explain that the department hire someone who specializes only the Eastern tradition--Confucianism
or Daoism. It would be good if our East Asian Studies department would have someone doing this,
but they are not. However in recent years there has been some excellent work done in a
comparative way, that is, thinking about what there is in common and what is quite different
between philosophical approaches to human experience in the East and in the West. This most
likely would be concerned with ethical and political matters. Such a person could strengthen the
offerings in ethics and politics in a global way. Such a person would intersect well with East Asian
Studies. There is little need to go on about how important China has become in the world and how
important it is to foster a conversation on our campus about cultural imperatives of China and the
West. Confucianism has made a large resurgence in China and has helped shaped the cultures of
Korea and Japan.
It would be best if the philosophy department could receive authorization over the next few years
to hire in both these specialities but we realize the College is not expanding the faculty and the
likelihood of this is small.
Either way we go, the philosophy department will lose its ability to offer courses in aesthetics. It is
quite unlikely that someone in the philosophy of science would also be an able teacher of aesthetics
in the way that Krausz has done.
We have been in conversation with the Haverford philosophy department about our situation. We
will continue to be in conversation with them about this. In our conversation last year, the
Haverford philosophy department expressed no preference for one description over the other. The
Haverford department does not offer the philosophy of science and they do not have a
comparativist of the sort that we have mentioned here.
I appreciate your extending the deadline for this letter of request.
I look forward to talking with CAP about how this position may be defined.
yours, Robert Dostal
Chair, Department of Philosophy
Department of Physics (610) 526-5367Bryn Mawr College (610) 526-7469 (fax)101 North Merion Avenue [email protected] Mawr, PA 19010-2899
B R Y N M A W R17 September 2014
Committee on Academic PrioritiesBryn Mawr College
Dear Colleagues,
The Physics Department is preparing to submit a proposal this fall requesting permission tosearch in 2015–16 for a tenure track position beginning in the academic year 2016–17. Therequest comes with the upcoming retirement of Peter Beckmann in mind. It is expected thatPeter’s last semester engaged in teaching or research in the department will be Fall 2016, sothis would be a one-semester overlap.
We are requesting the position now, not as part of a routine search, but with goal of strate-gizing as early as possible, in a collegewide context, to launch a search that maximizes ourchances of hiring a diversity candidate. With this concept outline, we affirm our commit-ment to faculty diversity, and seek the the support and collaboration CAP, the Committeeon Appointments, and the Provost’s office, as well as our faculty colleagues, as we preparefor a huge effort in this direction. As noted in the 26 March 2014 Faculty Meeting, BrynMawr College is lagging behind its peer institutions in faculty diversity. The message thatcame out of that meeting is that a different approach is needed in order to have an impacton hiring, most likely one implementing a stage of candidate identification that could leadto a targeted hire before moving to a public search.
In physics, the cards are stacked against us. The numbers of Hispanic Americans and AfricanAmericans earning a Ph.D. in physics averaged 28 and 17 out of 1,669 degrees per year, orjust 1.7% and 1.0%, respectively, for the three years from 2010 to 2012. One third of thedegrees by African Americans came from the four Historically Black Colleges and Universities(HBCUs) granting a Ph.D. in physics (AIP Trends in Physics Ph.D.s, February 2014). Theseare extremely small numbers, and a standard search, without strong institutional supportand proactive prior identification of an outstanding candidate, is overwhelmingly likely tofail to yield a hire fulfilling the College’s mission of diversity.
What works in our favor, and what we believe makes the Physics Department an excellentarena for developing a targeted search, is that we have no restrictions on a particular subfield
driven by a need to staff a particular component of our curriculum. We are simply looking foran excellent experimental physicist. Internationally, there is nearly universal consensus onwhat constitutes the core undergraduate and graduate physics curriculum. From a knowledgestandpoint, specialization occurs later in physics than in other disciplines. For this reason,any of the current physics faculty at Bryn Mawr College, and any new hire, would be ableto teach just about every course the department offers.
We realize that retirement replacements are not automatic, and as we have emphasized,we see the physics department as a prime testing ground for implementing a collaborativeinstitutional strategy to increase faculty diversity. Beyond this important goal, there is apractical staffing need, even with considerable flexibility in research specialty. The PhysicsDepartment at Bryn Mawr College is one of the smallest in the country offering a completemajor, and its current size already necessitates efficient use of human resources. A largefraction of our curricular offerings are directed to students outside of the department, inaddition to maintaining a robust physics major. The international consensus on the corephysics curriculum demands a strong physics degree program. We achieve this throughcooperation with Haverford College. At the junior and senior level, all but two of ourregular courses (senior seminar and our advanced lab, which is writing intensive) alternatebetween Bryn Mawr and Haverford College, so that they are offered on any one campusevery other year.
We are excited about further conceptualizing the position with our colleagues both to strate-gize a successful diversity search and to explore interdisciplinary opportunities, for example,in biophysics or physical chemistry, or in the broader Tri-Co context, engineering. (It isworth noting that the retiree, Peter Beckmann, maintained a 30+ year collaboration withFrank Mallory in the Chemistry department). We expect that we will have much to talkabout with Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Computer Science, Mathematics, the Physics andAstronomy Departments at Haverford and Swarthmore, and the Engineering Department atSwarthmore as well. We welcome feedback from the College as a whole.
Sincerely,
Michael B. SchulzChair, Department of PhysicsBryn Mawr College
Department of Psychology
Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Ave.
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899
B R Y N M A W R
September 12, 2014
Dear Members of the Committee on Academic Priorities,
The Psychology Department is preparing a request to conduct searches for two
Tenure-Track Positions. One search would be for an Assistant Professor in Social
Psychology beginning in academic year 2016-17. The second would be for an Assistant
Professor in Biological Psychology beginning in academic year 2018-19. This request
for two positions with sequenced searches is in response to CAP’s recommendation that
such an approach was the most useful and efficient in the face of the series of planned
retirements of a number of senior faculty members in the department.
The request for the Social Psychology position is motivated by several factors.
Social Psychology is a core area of our curriculum in psychology and one that is quite
popular with undergraduates. Major declarations and class enrollments have risen
significantly in Psychology in the last several years, so it is also critical that we continue
to be able to staff necessary classes at all levels of the curriculum and provide appropriate
mentorship and research supervision for our students. A successful search next year for
this position will obviate the need for an interim replacement in this critical area. This
tenure-track appointment in Social Psychology will help to ensure greater distribution
across the ranks as we begin to phase in the retirements of additional senior faculty
members. Social Psychology also represents an area of Psychology that is particularly
likely to have connections with other social science departments and initiatives.
Departments and Programs that might be part of Conversation about Conceptualizing
the Social Psychology Position
We believe this position may be of potential interest to our colleagues in
Sociology, Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, the Tri-Co Minor in Child and
Family Studies, the Bi-Co Health Studies Minor and the Graduate School of Social Work
and Social Research.
The request for the Biological Psychology position is motivated by several
factors. Biological Psychology is also a core area of our curriculum in psychology and
one that is quite popular with undergraduates. It is a critical position for providing
leadership and staffing for the popular Minor in Neuroscience and for facilitating ties
between psychology and other science departments and programs. In Psychology,
Biological perspectives continue to gain increased attention and focus, and it is important
for the future of the department that we continue to maintain strong representation in this
area. Additional factors that motivate the request for this position are the previously
mentioned increase in enrollments and majors as well as the desire to phase in new
appointments in Psychology to help create more distribution across ranks during a period
of significant transition. A successful search for this position will reduce the need for an
interim replacement in this critical area.
Departments and Programs that might be part of Conversation about Conceptualizing
the Biological Psychology Position
We believe this position may be of potential interest to our colleagues in Biology,
Biochemistry, Philosophy, the Postbac Program, the Tri-Co Minor in Child and Family
Studies, the Bi-Co Health Studies Minor, and the Graduate School of Social Work and
Social Research.
Sincerely,
Marc Schulz, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Psychology
September 15, 2014 TO: Committee on Academic Priorities From: Dean Darlyne Bailey on behalf of the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research RE: Request for Two Tenure-Track Positions in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research The Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research wishes to begin the process of requesting authorization to search for two tenure track positions. With the recent retirements of three tenured faculty members (Professors Dana Becker, Cynthia Bisman and Toba Kerson), we have important needs in the curricular areas of Foundation Practice and Clinical Social Work. Two of these retirements (Becker and Bisman) significantly alter the complement of T/TT faculty noted in the 2011 CAP report as responsible for the Foundation Practice and Clinical Social Work Courses. Additionally, recent retirements affect our ability to offer important content in areas such as health and social work, and limit faculty available to supervise doctoral dissertations. Thus, even though we continue to evolve to a smaller faculty size of 10 (8.5 FTE for any given year with consideration of sabbatical leaves), this request for positions addresses our current situation and future anticipated needs. In addition to the pedagogical value of core content being taught by Tenure/Tenure Track faculty, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) has requirements with regard to the percentage of course sections in key areas to be taught by full-time social work faculty as opposed to a primary reliance on the utilization of adjunct professors. In the short term, we have been fortunate to hire two interim faculty members to provide coverage in these key areas of our curriculum. These positions are now in years one and a half, and two of potentially three-year appointments, so we anticipate critical future gaps in these core areas of the MSS curriculum. In this initial position request, we will outline the evolution of our anticipated needs in these areas and the ways in which the proposed positions will help to address our current needs and create important opportunities for the GSSWR. We look forward to conversations with CAP regarding the importance of the proposed positions. In addition, we look forward to conversations with faculty in other departments about how these positions might support other needs at the College and provide opportunities for connection and collaboration. Specifically, we anticipate conversations with faculty in Psychology (particularly, the new hire in health psychology), Sociology, International Studies and Political Science, and we plan to reflect on ways in which any new hire could connect with other initiatives at the College such as LILAC and the 360 program. Recent History: Foundation Practice, Clinical Social Work and Associated Courses. One way to capture the gap created by recent retirements is to review the percentage of Foundation Practice and Clinical Social Work course sections taught by these faculty members. Further, it is important to consider the percentage of T/TT faculty that has been represented by Bisman, Kerson and Becker in these curricular areas. Recent changes in the MSS curriculum also have implications for faculty hiring at this juncture. In 2012, the elective course on “Psychopathology” evolved into a required course entitled “Assessment and Psychopathology”. This reflected a curricular review process and input from field education placement sites pointing to the need for more of the MSS students to have more content in the areas of assessment and psychopathology. When the course became a requirement, Becker remained the only T/TT faculty teaching in this area.
Foundation Practice. Cynthia Bisman and Toba Kerson carried key responsibilities for Foundation Practice I and II. From Fall 2008 through Fall 2013, the percentage of Foundation Practice I sections taught by Bisman and Kerson ranges from 33% to 66% with an average of 58%. For the same time period, Bisman and Kerson represent an average of 73% of the T/TT faculty teaching in this area. During these years, the percentage of Foundation Practice II sections taught by Bisman and Kerson ranged from 40% to 60% with an average of 52%. For Foundation Practice II, Bisman and Kerson represented an average of 75% of the T/TT faculty. Without additional hiring, only 1 T/TT faculty member remains in the Foundation Practice sequence. Bisman and Kerson also held responsibilities for key electives in the MSS program. While some of these are now covered by other faculty, other key courses (e.g. family therapy) currently are left with no T/TT faculty coverage. Clinical Social Work. Dana Becker carried key responsibilities for the Clinical Social Work sequence core courses, and also led the course on assessment and psychopathology, as well as a clinical elective in family therapy and a doctoral course in behavioral theory. She represented 1/3 of the T/TT faculty carrying core responsibilities for the Clinical Social Work concentration. From Fall 2008 through Spring of 2012, Becker taught 20% of the Clinical Social Work sections when not on sabbatical. More importantly, Becker represented from 33% to 100% of the T/TT faculty teaching Clinical Social Work during years she was not on sabbatical. For this same time period, the GSSWSR’s coverage of these courses by T/TT ranged from 20% to 60% with an average of 42%. Assessment and Psychopathology. Since 2012, this is a required course for all MSS students in the Clinical Social Work concentration. From Spring 2012 to Summer 2014, 16 sections of this course have been offered. Of these, Dana Becker was the only T/TT faculty to teach this content. We now have no T/TT faculty in this course area of the curriculum. Academic Year 2014-2015 and beyond. Over time, the GSSWSR has been reviewing the strengths and unmet needs of the GSSWSR with particular attention to further definition of a strategic focus and with regard to how recent faculty hires (e.g. Cindy Sousa), interim hires (Graves, Bowen), retirements (Becker, Bisman, Kerson) and departures (Schram) affect our ability to meet the requirements of our MSS and PhD programs, as well as anticipate needed coverage for academic leaves, meet the requirements of CSWE, and address our ability to build on our strengths and forge meaningful collaborations with other departments at BMC. In terms of elective offerings, several gaps are created by recent retirements. Family Therapy and Group Therapy are key content areas. Between 2008 and 2014, Becker and Bisman have taught 40% of the sections of Family Therapy, with the remainder taught by adjuncts. In that same time period, 100% of the Group Therapy sections have been taught by an adjunct faculty member. As part of its self-review, the Clinical Social Work faculty have decided to recommend that all CSW students be required to take at least one multi-person practice course as working with groups and families is an increasingly central element of many clinical social work positions and in need of T/TT leadership. Similarly, since 2011 “Substance Abuse” has been taught by an adjunct 100% of the time. In keeping with our self-review, this content has emerged as central and connected to a health/mental health focus that requires more T/TT leadership. We seek to hire scholar-practitioners able to address the connection between theory and practice, and who bring substantive expertise and research experience in identified key curricular areas. Additionally, we anticipate needs in our PhD program relating to the curriculum and also to the supervision of PhD students. Key content areas might include an increased emphasis the role of social work in medical settings, substance abuse, and a holistic view toward the integration of physical and mental health. We look forward to conversations with other departments and initiatives in further exploration of how the proposed hires could help to support additional collaboration.