Director of Curriculum & STEM Engagement

General Summary: 

The Director of Curriculum and STEM Engagement of the Honors College will be responsible for co-directing the College curriculum, especially in STEM subjects, and for establishing and maintaining the College’s relationships with internal and external partners in STEM fields, such as academic departments, science-related industries, and funding agencies. The incumbent will be responsible for teaching {2 courses/year), mentoring students, lecturers, and TFs, and scheduling courses, including recruiting faculty to teach each semester in the Honors College. The incumbent will represent the Honors College at faculty, department, and university-wide committees as well as sit on the Honors College Governing Council. The incumbent will work directly with the Dean of the Honors College to ensure that the Honors College meets both short and long-term goals for academic rigor while staying true to its mission.

 

 

Examples of Duties: 

• Participating in the culture of shared leadership in the College, developing supportive working relationships, motivation, and engagement.
• Teaching 2 courses/year in the college at various levels of the curriculum.
• Advising and mentoring students (typically at least 60 students will be assigned to the incumbent).
• Recruiting departmental faculty to teach in the Honors College and serving as a mentor to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows as they design and teach Honors College courses.
• Consulting with College faculty on course development and pedagogical approaches most appropriate to the Honors College, including organizing mid-semester faculty meetings, and training and supporting faculty in innovative and high-impact teaching methods.
• Assessing and analyzing course evaluations each semester to determine which courses should be repeated and/or made permanent, helping to create a sustainable teaching model for the College, and putting courses through governance to make them permanent.
• Helping to assess academic programs.
• Working with the dean on short-term and long-term course scheduling.
• Serving as senior thesis director or thesis committee member for those students who thesis is on a topic in the area of the incumbent’s expertise.
• Working with the Dean to ensure that the Honors College serves as a model on campus of undergraduate research, and chairing the university-wide Undergraduate Research Committee, and the university-wide Undergraduate Research Funds application process.
• Advising on, and helping to apply for, externally funded STEM-education initiatives, industry connections, and internship opportunities for Honors students.
• Developing and maintaining relationships with current and potential external partners and sponsors.
• Helping the Dean to ensure that juniors and seniors in the college are on track to identifying a thesis director and are progressing satisfactorily through the process of writing a senior thesis.
• Helping students identify and/or craft alternatives to the senior thesis that are comparable in their rigor and intellectual demands.
• Assisting the Dean on a variety of issues and serving on the Honors College Governing Council.
• In the Dean's absence, attending Dean's Council meetings and presiding at Honors meetings and events.
• Participating in the Honors overnight freshman orientation program, attending recruitment and other events designed to enhance the visibility of the Honors College.
• Serving as a member of several university-wide committees, such as the Undergraduate Research Committee, the Udall Committee, the Museum Partnerships Committee, the JFK Award Committee, the Academic Policy committee - and serving as chair for some of these committees.
• Founding, designing, and directing intensive summer and spring programs to build students' research skills, including units on reading and writing primary literature, analyzing and visualizing complex data, performing experimental design and statistical analysis, networking and career development.
• Identifying research and internship opportunities (including on-campus and off-campus, and in academia and industry) for students and supporting them in their application processes by editing resumes and personal statements and writing letters of recommendation.
• Supporting students through the process of applying to prestigious national and international fellowships, like those from Udall, NSF, and Goldwater, both before and post-graduation.
• Creating supportive pathways for students who intend to pursue graduate studies in STEM.
• Working with students to plan and prepare for a range of graduate school applications (for degrees including Masters, PhD, MD, PharmD, PA, etc.), including providing feedback on resumes,