Assistant Professor (2 positions)

The University of South Alabama Chemistry Department seeks applicants for two tenure-track positions at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin August 15, 2008.

A Ph.D. in Chemistry, Biochemistry, or a closely related discipline is required, and postdoctoral experience is desirable. One appointment will be in Organic Chemistry, the other in Biochemistry. Discipline-dependent teaching responsibilities include Organic Chemistry lecture and lab, Biochemistry lecture and lab, and General Chemistry lecture. Ours is an exclusively undergraduate department. Excellence in teaching is expected. In addition, the tempo of research activity and level of external funding are both high. Consequently, the establishment of a productive, externally-funded research program in organic chemistry or biochemistry will be indispensable for advancement. Start-up funds are negotiable, and salary is competitive. More detailed information may be found at http://www.southalabama.edu/chemistry/.

Please submit a letter of application, CV, research and funding plan, and statement of teaching philosophy directly to:

Dr. James H. Davis, Jr.
Chair, Faculty Search Committee
Department of Chemistry
University of South Alabama
Mobile, AL 36688-0002

In addition, arrange for three original letters of recommendation and official transcripts to be sent (official transcripts and original letters of recommendation are required prior to interview).

Review of applications will begin on March 17, 2008 and continue until the positions are filled.

The University of South Alabama is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access Employer.

Research and Funding Plans

We would like to receive brief (2-3pp) but informative outlines of research projects you would undertake upon joining our faculty. Ideally, you will be able to provide two or more such outlines of different projects. As you may have discovered in your professional training to this point, projects occasionally don’t work as planned. As a consequence, having more than one plan of proposed research in place provides a buffer to protect against the unexpected. Within each research plan, you should address WHAT you want to do, HOW you will do it, WHY you – as well as prospective students, reviewers and program officers at funding agencies should – care about the idea, and finally HOW you will adapt the project to be done in an undergraduate environment. In regards to the funding plan, you should outline which funding agencies you will go to in order to seek funding to sustain your efforts, and why you think the specified sources are suitable sources for your planned research. In addition to the sources and programs you will almost certainly be familiar with as a current graduate student or postdoc, we will be looking to see if you have identified and included any of several government and private funding sources which have programs geared specifically to funding research in undergraduate environments. Thinking ahead about possible funding sources is almost as vital as having a workable research agenda. While it is easy to imagine that in a faculty position you have the freedom to research any topic, it is also easy to loose sight of the fact that without funding such efforts are hard to sustain; You must have ideas which not only seem good to you, but ideas about which you can excite others (reviewers, program officers, etc.).

Teaching Philosophy

At USA, you will be in a dynamic teaching environment in which you will likely have the responsibility to teach courses at the introductory, intermediate and advanced levels. The students in your classroom will be from a diverse mix of backgrounds and prior levels of educational preparation and abilities. You will have students who are first-time, just-out-of-high school freshman to older individuals with families who are working full-time jobs and raising families. You will have students who are in lower-level chemistry classes as part of general education requirements, as well as those who are chemistry or other science or engineering majors. The students in your classes who are chemistry majors will have career aspirations ranging from landing a job at a local chemical manufacturing plant as a B.S. chemist to those intent upon graduate study in chemistry or studies in medicine. In your statement of teaching philosophy, you should address how you plan to approach your teaching responsibilities both in and out of the classroom; how the style in which you expect to teach (chalk-talk, PowerPoint/multimedia approach, interactive learning – whatever) will allow you to best meet the needs of your students. You should also address what you see as the role of undergraduate research in the process of chemical education, and describe how your experiences as a student will inform your approach to being an educator.

Annual Reports for College of Arts and Sciences

Departmental Activities, 2006 (p. 39-46)
( http://www.usouthal.edu/arts&sci/2006annualreport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2005 (p. 33-40)
( http://www.southalabama.edu/arts&sci/2005AnnualReport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2004 (p. 42-50)
( http://www.southalabama.edu/arts&sci/2004AnnualReport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2003 (p. 39-52)
( http://www.southalabama.edu/arts&sci/2003annualreport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2002 (p. 29-27)
( http://www.southalabama.edu/arts&sci/2002-03AnnualReport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2001 (p. 41-49)
( http://www.southalabama.edu/arts&sci/annualreport2001final.pdf )