Job Description

NUS College (NUSC), the honours program for the National University of Singapore, plans to hire dedicated individuals to fill numerous vacancies. These are full-time, renewable lecturer positions that include opportunities for research funding and for promotion to Associate Professor with Open Contract on the NUS Educator Track, as described below.

The primary responsibility is to offer one of our mandatory courses, to which you will be expected to bring your own academic and intellectual expertise.

The courses and corresponding positions are:

Thinking with Writing (TWW)

This course introduces NUSC first-year students to the practices and conventions of academic thinking and writing in very small class settings and builds transferable skills which serve as a foundation of their academic development at NUSC. While applicants from any field of study are welcome to apply for this position, we are especially interested in individuals with backgrounds in visual arts, film studies, cultural studies, gender studies, history, economics and communications. Preference will be given to applicants whose work can be applied to local or regional Asian contexts or concerns. The primary responsibility will be to design and teach a topic-based, multidisciplinary writing course. You should be able to demonstrate your ability to design and teach such a course by providing evidence, which does not have to be limited to prior experience in teaching writing courses or how you have systematically guided students in written assignments. This can also include intentionality and thoughtfulness, whether informed by scholarship on writing curricula and pedagogy, or more general reflection about the demands of teaching writing. Successful candidates are expected to offer 3 courses of Thinking with Writing in the academic year, an elective of their own design, and take on small supervision load of independent study modules.

Global Narratives (GLN)

Global Narratives is a team-taught core module that introduces students to enduring works of the human imagination across many global traditions. It explores how these works represent cultural narratives, values, and questions that encapsulate historical moments and communicate beyond their specific contexts. Students will examine different media and genres across a variety of world traditions and periods. More specifically, the module is composed of two-week units on poetry, short stories, philosophical narratives, drama, historiography, visual arts, and film and new media. Lecturers in this module will help students to appreciate the historical context and broader cultural significance of each work, to pose helpful questions, to develop sensitive interpretations, and to evaluate arguments. While applicants from any field of study are welcome to apply for this position, we are especially interested in individuals with backgrounds in (comparative) literature, visual arts, film studies, cultural studies, history, and philosophy. You should be able to demonstrate your ability to teach a seminar-style literature course and articulate how your disciplinary expertise will allow you to contribute to the teaching team. While experience with team teaching is a plus, it is not required. Successful candidates are expected to offer 3 sections of Global Narratives in the academic year, an elective of their own design, and take on a small supervision load of independent study modules.

Apart from offering sections for one of the above courses, a secondary responsibility is to contribute to other parts of NUSC education and more broadly to new developments in interdisciplinary honours education in NUS. This role could include designing and teaching more specialised, knowledge-based elective classes that are interdisciplinary in nature and draw on your own interests and expertise. Another option is for you to offer original ideas about what other kinds of contributions you can bring to interdisciplinary education in NUS in small class settings. Generally, all NUSC classes maintain small faculty-to-student ratios. No matter what secondary role you see yourself performing, you should have a commitment to innovation in undergraduate and honours education, be devoted to your own research and teaching excellence, and have the willingness and ability to engage students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

Qualifications

Candidates must hold a PhD by August 2022. While we are keen to hire individuals able to start by that time, we will also consider individuals able to start by January 2023. Remuneration and benefits are highly competitive on the global research university level. Benefits include relocation assistance and a housing subsidy for the first nine years. Appointments begin at the level of Lecturer on the Educator Track, or possibly the level of Senior Lecturer if previous experience warrants it. Although the NUS Educator Track is not a tenurable line, it offers a pathway to promotion to Associate Professorship on an open contract (and beyond), as well as opportunities for research funding, including overseas research and conference travel. The contract is for three years in the first instance and is renewable subject to good performance.

Interested applicants should prepare and submit the following documents when they apply:

• A cover letter, clearly specifying which position they are applying for.
• CV: An abridged CV (5-page maximum), including details on education, employment history, past experience of teaching and supervision, research activities (including publications) and achievements, honours and awards, and service accomplishments.
• Qualifications: Include scanned copies of academic degrees.
• Teaching Portfolio:
  • A Teaching Statement that commences with a preface (maximum 300 words) that makes the case for appointment. This should be a highly distilled summary of key contributions to student learning and, if applicable, educational leadership, guided by your teaching philosophy. The rest of the Statement, of not more than 2,000 words, should outline your teaching philosophy and your educational contribution across multiple dimensions and roles. Please include evidence on how you have impact students’ learning experience and outcomes as well as how you have influenced peers and the community.
  • Teaching evaluations and peer review reports, if available. Other evidence of teaching excellence and/or other contributions to education, e.g., curriculum development, pedagogical innovation etc., should also be provided.
• A proposal, of not more than 500 words, describing a prospective syllabus for the target course.
• A statement, of not more than 500 words, highlighting how you plan to contribute to pedagogical innovation and/or advance interdisciplinary honours education at NUSC.
• FOUR referees’ letters (one of whom must be the applicant’s PhD supervisor). Referees may submit their letters to uspbox23@nus.edu.sg.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis beginning from mid-Apr 2022.

Interviews will normally be conducted online. Only shortlisted applicants will be notified. We plan to conduct the process entirely online given the uncertain travel situation.

Please email all enquiries specific to this advertisement to uspbox23@nus.edu.sg.

More information about NUSC and our curriculum can be found on our website: https://nuscollege.nus.edu.sg/

Additional information about Academic Appointments at NUS can be found here: http://www.nus.edu.sg/careers/

Covid-19 Message

At NUS, the health and safety of our staff and students are one of our utmost priorities, and COVID-vaccination supports our commitment to ensure the safety of our community and to make NUS as safe and welcoming as possible. Many of our roles require a significant amount of physical interactions with students/staff/public members. Even for job roles that may be performed remotely, there will be instances where on-campus presence is required.

Taking into consideration the health and well-being of our staff and students and to better protect everyone in the campus, applicants are strongly encouraged to have themselves fully COVID-19 vaccinated to secure successful employment with NUS.

More Information

Location: Kent Ridge
Organization: National University of Singapore
Department: NUS College