The Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies (RFSS) Department at Bates College invites applications for an open rank tenure-line position to begin in August 2025.  The successful applicant will serve as the Director of Debate for the Brooks Quimby Debate Council (BQDC) and offer courses in RFSS.  We seek an outstanding scholar with strong commitments to excellent undergraduate teaching, coaching, and mentorship in a liberal arts context. 

RFSS teaches students to understand how people use symbolic systems in processes of negotiation within democratic states.  Historically, this understanding has come through study of oratory, writing, and debate.  As the public sphere has expanded, so too have the skills needed for successful agency: skills also now address visual media such as film, television, and virtual worlds.

The responsibilities of the position include the three main areas of faculty work: teaching, professional achievement, and governance and engagement.  These duties include: teaching four courses over three academic terms (which will include contributing to our college-wide First Year Seminar program about once every four years, offering a debate “Practicum” course in conjunction with the BQDC, and possibly contributing an innovative course to be offered on-or-off campus during the college’s 4-week short term), advising senior theses, serving as academic advisor, and fulfilling governance commitments to the college.

We seek a candidate with a record of research and teaching excellence consistent with the standards of a tenure track position.  The standards of excellence for faculty at Bates are articulated in Article II of the faculty handbook, and include a commitment to inclusive and evidence-based pedagogy, impactful professional work, and contributions to the broader Bates community.  Specifically, we seek a candidate with experience teaching performance-oriented courses with the ability to also offer new classes that will complement the department’s emphasis on rhetoric, film, and screen studies.  A main focus for this position is the performance of citizenship and issues of power, particularly through the intersectional lenses of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, or other identity categories.  We appreciate diverse and creative approaches to performance, public discourses, and community-engaged learning.

The BQDC is a unique program that has historically emphasized international debate, domestic competitions, and on-campus public debates. The BQDC was founded just after the college in 1855, participated in the first intercollegiate debate in 1896, the first international collegiate debate in 1908, and debated Oxford University in their first debate in the United States in 1923.  It is an integral part of Bates College.

Director of Debate responsibilities include recruitment, budget oversight, fundraising, coaching, and travel with the team. As Director of Debate, the successful candidate will lead the storied BQDC while working to further integrate the program into the department’s curriculum through a combination of coaching a competitive Parliamentary debate team, on-campus public debate events, and innovative course offerings.

Please submit the following: a letter of application, curriculum vitae, research statement, writing sample, a teaching/coaching statement, and at least one sample syllabus.  The teaching and coaching statements may be combined and should describe how the applicant meets Bates’ standards of excellence in terms of inclusive and evidence-based pedagogy and coaching.  The research statement should speak to the current and future promise of a candidate’s professional work.  The committee will request letters of recommendation from three referees for short-listed candidates.  Employment is contingent upon successful completion of a background check and verification of degree.  Review of applications will begin on October 4, 2024.

Bates students come from a diversity of educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, and we are committed to each student’s success. Thus, candidates may choose to share evidence of their skills and experience supporting a diverse student body either in a separate, additional document or integrated into the teaching/coaching, and research statements.  We encourage applications from individuals from historically marginalized groups and from those who may have followed non-traditional pathways to higher education due to societal, economic, or academic circumstances.  Applicants may choose to describe the breadth of their teaching repertoire, for example, how they have worked with, or plan to work with, historically underrepresented, first-generation, and marginalized student populations.

Bates College is a residential liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine—a diverse and growing community roughly 45 minutes from the state’s largest city, 2 ½ hour north of Boston, and 4 ½ hours south of Montreal.  Faculty scholarship and creative work at Bates are robustly supported by start-up packages, internal grants, and a well-staffed external grants office. Community-engaged learning and study abroad are both broadly encouraged and supported; pedagogical development and innovation is further buttressed by our highly engaged Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning.

Educational access and racial justice are central to Bates’ history and mission and our faculty-led initiatives reflect this commitment.  For more information contact department chair Dr. Stephanie Kelley-Romano.

Candidates with demonstrated success in working with indigenous, historically underrepresented, first-generation college, and other marginalized and vulnerable populations are encouraged to apply. A Ph.D. should be earned by August 2025 in rhetoric, speech, or communication studies.

About https://www.bates.edu/

Founded in 1855, Bates is one of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges, with a long history of commitments to principles of human dignity and diversity.Since its inception, Bates has been a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor and to programs and opportunities by qualified learners of all backgrounds. Historically, Bates students and graduates have linked education with service, leadership, and obligations beyond themselves.Bates has highly competitive admission, graduates over 90% of its entering students, and over half of its alumni earn graduate degrees. Bates has 1,700 students, 200 faculty members and 550 staff and administrative employees.The College is proud of its strong involvements in the Lewiston-Auburn communities, Maine’s second largest urban area, with a population of approximately 65,000. Bates is located on a beautiful, 109-acre, traditional New England campus in Lewiston, Maine, a lively small city enjoying an exciting economic and cultural revitalization. With an engaged citizenry, lively arts scene, and historic downtown, this walkable city is 35 miles north of Portland, 140 miles north of Boston, and 340 miles north of New York City.

Connections working at https://www.bates.edu/