Job description

The Department of Graphic Design, in the Division of Architecture and Design, at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), invites applications for full-time faculty appointment at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, to commence in fall 2025. Rank will be dependent on professional status and teaching experience.

RISD recognizes principles of social equity, inclusion, and diversity as fundamental to its academic mission as an art and design school. We understand these principles to require ongoing attention to difference and expansion of the forms of knowledge from which our curricula originate. RISD is engaged in the collective work of institutional transformation and would value applicants whose pedagogical and professional experiences have prepared them to foster equitable teaching and learning environments. We encourage applicants whose teaching and professional work (creative practice and/or academic scholarship) centers on bodies of knowledge from historically underrepresented communities. We are eager to welcome applicants who can help advance the institution’s social equity, inclusion, and diversity goals and those from groups whose underrepresentation in the American professoriate has been severe and long standing, including Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other People of Color, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, veterans, people with disabilities, and first-generation college students.

The Schiller Family Assistant/Associate Professorship is part of an ambitious and progressive vision for art and design education. The ideal candidate is an elastic thinker and maker who contributes to—and draws energy and inspiration from—a vibrant, creative, and experimental community of learners. The candidate will thrive in a wide-ranging, multi-faceted teaching environment in a department that values the fundamentals of graphic design—form, typography, and communication—while simultaneously expanding its definition with an emphasis on more inclusive and globally-minded approaches to visual communication. Applicants are expected to offer courses that broaden traditional art and design curricula while contributing to reshaping pedagogies, teaching both undergraduate and graduate students in core studios, seminars, and studio electives of their own design. The ideal candidate will be an active practitioner whose work extends across diverse media, integrating new, evolving tools and computational technology, while engaging with critical perspectives on making.

We are looking for a colleague who can join the fabric of the department through inclusive teaching and departmental and college-wide service. Candidates should demonstrate an interest in community and departmental leadership by being advocate, mentor, and advisor to our students, with the option to choose to serve as a rotating department head in the future.

Required Qualifications
MFA/MA in graphic design or a related field.
At least 2 years of undergraduate or graduate teaching experience, either full-time or an equivalent amount of courses taught as an adjunct faculty member.
A strong commitment to expanding traditional design practices and contributing to a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future in art and design.
Proof of prolific practice across both digital and material media, alongside critical perspectives and sustained engagement with computational technologies and processes, contributing to the evolving discourse in graphic design.
The successful candidate will have a demonstrated teaching record that exemplifies inclusionary pedagogy practices.

Preferred Qualifications
Engagement with critical issues around making and working with contemporary tools/technologies and theories, with a contribution to relevant communities.
Expertise with digital tools and possibly expertise in areas such as: designing for software, scripting in programming languages, teaching computation, digital experience design, interaction design, generative systems, time-based media, 3D modeling, AR/VR, and data visualization.

Innovative methods of form-making, and/or experimental approaches, in order to develop broader, more inclusive narratives that incorporate and advance non-traditional histories, introducing perspectives and practices that challenge the conventional Eurocentric models and embrace diverse epistemologies, particularly those from Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities.

Evidence of work outside the classroom engaging with various communities both within the institution and externally, promoting social justice, and fostering inclusivity.

RISD/ Department Description
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is an undergraduate and graduate college of art and design with approximately 2,500 graduate and undergraduate students. RISD has a critical review process, which is very similar to the tenure process. RISD supports faculty professional practice with sabbaticals, pre-critical review leave, conference funds, and professional development grants. For more information about RISD, please visit www.risd.edu.

At RISD Graphic Design, we honor individuality as it grows out of a shared set of skills, methods, and texts. New tools and processes and longstanding ways of making are considered alongside each other as viable options for human expression. With 14 full-time faculty and 25+ part-time faculty, the Graphic Design Department offers 110 classes a year for approximately 200 BFA candidates, 40 MFA candidates, and a small number of non-major and Brown University students. For more information about RISD Graphic Design, please visit https://risd.gd/.

Apply Directly at https://careers.risd.edu/postings/2345