Assistant Professor of Studio Art 2D

Posting Details

Dickinson College is a premier four-year residential liberal arts institution chartered in 1783 and widely recognized as a leader in global and sustainability education. Dickinson College is located in Carlisle, named a “most livable city” by Forbes and is minutes from the state capital of Harrisburg. The campus is connected to a vibrant downtown that offers eclectic dining, shopping and entertainment options. Within a two-hour drive are Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.; New York City is three hours away.

Dickinson College offers full-time employees a broad range of benefits, including a comprehensive medical insurance plan, life insurance, flexible spending accounts, generous time off, parental leave, homebuyer assistance, and tuition benefits for eligible employees and dependent children under the age of 24. Upon eligibility, the College contributes 8% of an employee’s base salary to a retirement account with an additional .5% matching contribution; all money paid by the college into the employee’s retirement plan is immediately and fully vested in the employee.

Below you will find the details for the position, including any supplementary documentation and questions you should review before applying for the opening. To apply for the position, please click the "Apply" for this job link button above.

Position Department

Job Summary/Basic Function

The Department of Art & Art History at Dickinson College seeks a professor of 2D Studio Art at the assistant level for a full-time, tenure track appointment starting in the 2026-27 academic year. In addition to contributing to course offerings in drawing, the successful candidate will teach a range of 2D courses, ideally in at least two of the following three areas: painting, digital processes, and printmaking. We are especially interested in candidates with the ability to teach one or more courses in contemporary digital practice, including time-based process. The position will also share in the instruction of Senior and First-Year Seminars, which are taught on rotating schedules among Department faculty. Candidates for this position should have the desire to be part of a liberal arts institution that values teaching, scholarship, and shared service among faculty. The particular model of teaching at Dickinson encourages curricular connection across disciplines, urges students to explore issues related to sustainability, community, and social justice as inherent responsibilities of student learning. Studio art classes at Dickinson stress skill, process, experimentation, and contextual concerns towards the development of a meaningful creative practice. The search committee is committed to building a faculty that reflects our diverse student population in the major, as well as non-major students who represent a large percentage of our studio art and art history courses. The ability to create inclusive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body will be an important characteristic of the successful candidate.

Dickinson College is a highly selective four-year, independent liberal arts college with 2300 students. It is located 20 minutes west of Harrisburg and is a two-hour drive from Baltimore, Washington DC and Philadelphia. The Department of Art & Art History is a combined studio art and art history department with five faculty teaching studio art and four faculty teaching art history. Together, the Department fosters a rigorous, critical investigation through active processes of learning in which students connect historical discourse with an engagement of art from multiple perspectives. The Department has excellent studio facilities for teaching and private studios for faculty.

Teaching Responsibilities: Primary responsibilities include teaching a five-course load per academic year, at all levels, to a mix of majors and non-majors. Course load will include at least one section of drawing at the intro or advanced-level per academic year. In addition to drawing the position will require teaching courses in two of three other areas: painting, digital process, or printmaking. In addition to offering existing courses in these areas, candidates will have the opportunity to develop new courses reflective of curricular demand. We encourage candidates with unique approaches to teaching digital process within the broader studio art context including new media and intermedia. This might include the integration of analog and digital, experimental approaches, and time-based process. Full-time faculty members teach the senior studio art seminar on a rotating basis, with students working across a range of mediums within a contemporary context. Additional programmatic responsibilities include participating in critiques of senior studio art majors, sharing the coordination of visiting artists, and advising students. After year-two, there will be service expectations at the all-college level, including the advising of majors and undeclared students, and possible committee service. Teaching at least one First Year Seminar is required before tenure and then approximately once every four years. Upon tenure, service responsibilities will also include department chairing expectations (a three-year rotation among all tenured faculty members in the department of Art & Art History).

Required qualifications:

· An MFA degree in studio art at the time of appointment.

· Evidence of effective college-level teaching and the ability to create inclusive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body.

· Ability to teach observational drawing at the intro level with an emphasis on perceptual approaches.

· The ability to teach advanced drawing, addressing a range of technical and conceptual approaches from historical to contemporary practice.

· Proficiency in the formal, perceptual, theoretical, and historical elements of art as related to contemporary practice.

· Excellent communication and leadership skills are essential, as are a dedication to collegial collaboration and to serving the department, institution, and professional field

Interested candidates should apply for this position electronically via https://jobs.dickinson.edu. Application deadline is January 4, 2026. Review of applications will begin immediately with the search committee scheduling zoom interviews with top candidates starting in mid-late January.

Candidates should submit using the "Apply" button above; please include:

· Letter of application

· Curriculum Vitae

· Graduate Transcript

· Three letters of recommendation. Can be submitted either as a multi-page PDF (in the ADDITIONAL DOCUMENT SECTION), or recommenders can email letters directly to the Art Dept. Coordinator, Michele Karper (karperm@dickinson.edu)

· Teaching statement

· Artist statement (one page maximum)

· 20 digital images that illustrate the candidate’s professional practice as an artist. Please submit as either a link to a web portfolio or as a multi-page PDF (Do not send individual images as attachments). All images must be captioned to provide relevant contextual information including media, sizes, dates, etc.

· 20 digital images that illustrate examples of student work. Please submit as either a link to a web portfolio or as a multi-page PDF (Do not send individual images as attachments). All images must be captioned to provide relevant contextual information including course name and level, media, sizes, dates, etc.

· Up to three sample syllabi for undergraduate courses as a multi-page PDF. (The search committee is interested in seeing syllabi that represent a range of courses from intro to advanced levels.)

· Finalists for this position will be asked to submit teaching evaluations as evidence of excellence in the classroom.

Please address your letter of application to:
Melinda Schlitt, Professor and Chair, A&AH Department

EEO/Diversity Statement:    

The College is committed to building a representative and diverse faculty, staff, and student body. We encourage applications from all qualified persons.