Director of the Center for the Humanities (EXPIRED)

The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech invites applications and nominations for a founding Director of the Virginia Tech Center for the Humanities. The College is establishing a Center for the Humanities as part of a renewed commitment to raising the profile and presence of humanities disciplines at Virginia Tech.

The Director will be a distinguished scholar in his or her discipline but will also bring to Virginia Tech a compelling vision that encompasses the vital tradition of the humanities and their continued relevance. The Director will have the opportunity to realize that vision through the establishment of a high-profile Center for the Humanities that will support faculty, students, and programs across the humanities. Holding the rank of tenured Professor in one of the College’s humanities departments (English, Foreign Languages and Literatures, History, Philosophy, and Religion and Culture), the Director will be expected to maintain an ongoing research agenda and will have opportunities for teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

The Director will work with faculty and other university and college stakeholders to define the scope and mandate of the Center. The core activities of the Director include overseeing existing internal grant programs that support individual faculty fellowships, departmental grants, and speakers, events, and colloquia in the humanities. The Director will also oversee the College’s participation in several new digital publishing and digital humanities initiatives through collaborations with University Libraries and external stakeholders, including the Association of American Universities and the Association of Research Libraries. The Center will be housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, but the Center will also benefit from the university’s strong research culture as well as its collaborative, cross-disciplinary research institutes, including the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment and the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. As part of the university’s upcoming comprehensive campaign, the Director will also have opportunities to work with alumni and other donors to expand existing private support for a wide range of humanities initiatives at Virginia Tech.

Required qualifications:

• A Ph.D. in a humanities discipline
• A record of distinguished scholarly excellence, commensurate with appointment at the rank of Professor
• Administrative experience at the department, center, or college level
• Demonstrated ability to administer a budget
• Commitment to effective collaboration with a wide and diverse range of stakeholders
• Ability to serve as an articulate advocate for the humanities and for the liberal arts as a whole

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience or interest in fundraising and working with donors
• Experience or interest in developing collaborative relationship with granting agencies, foundations, and other external partners.

The Director position will be a 12-month appointment; salary is competitive.

Virginia Tech is a top 25 public research institution and the leading research university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia Tech’s humanities faculty are well regarded both for scholarship in traditional humanities areas and for innovative digital humanities initiatives. Payscale has ranked Virginia Tech as a top-20 humanities program each of the past two years (2015, ranked 10th; 2016, ranked 18th) for long-term value on investment.

Located in Blacksburg, Virginia, we are approximately 45 minutes from the city of Roanoke, VA, 2 1/2 hours from Charlottesville, VA and Greensboro, NC, 3 hours from Charlotte, NC, and 4 ½ hours from Washington, DC. Blacksburg, between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountain ranges, was voted a Top 10 “dream town” for outdoor activities by Outside Magazine, and declared the “Best Place in the U.S. to Raise Kids” by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Virginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, or veteran status; or otherwise discriminate against employees or applicants who inquire about, discuss, or disclose their compensation or the compensation of other employees, or applicants; or any other basis protected by law (http://www.vt.edu/about/equal-opportunity.html).