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Assistant Professor

The University of South Alabama Chemistry Department seeks applicants for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin August 15, 2010.

A Ph.D. in Chemistry or related field is required, and postdoctoral experience is desirable. Primary teaching responsibilities will include Organic Chemistry lecture and lab. The establishment of a productive, externally-funded research program will be a requirement for advancement. Preference will be given to individuals with research interests in synthetic organic chemistry. Ours is an undergraduate department where the tempo of research activity and level of external funding are both high; however excellence in teaching is also expected. Start-up funds are negotiable, and salary is competitive. Review of applications will begin on March 1, 2010 and continue until the position is filled.

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

Dr. Richard E. Sykora.
Chair, Chemistry Faculty Search Committee
Department of Chemistry
307 N University Blvd
CHEM 223
Mobile, AL 36688-0002

In addition, arrange for three 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 1, 2010 and continue until the position is filled.

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 lose 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, 2009 (p. 37-47)
(http://www.southalabama.edu/artsandsci/pdf/2009annualreport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2008 (p. 49-57)
(http://www.southalabama.edu/artsandsci/pdf/2008annualreport.pdf)

Departmental Activities, 2007 (p. 47-55)
(http://www.southalabama.edu/artsandsci/pdf/2007annualreport.pdf )

Departmental Activities, 2006 (p. 39-46)
(http://www.southalabama.edu/artsandsci/pdf/2006annualreport.pdf)

Departmental Activities, 2005 (p. 33-40)
(http://www.southalabama.edu/artsandsci/pdf/2005annualreport.pdf)

Departmental Activities, 2004 (p. 42-50)
(http://www.southalabama.edu/artsandsci/pdf/2004annualreport.pdf)