LAMAR UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ART
POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
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POSITION: Assistant Professor, Museum Director/Art History, Tenure Track
RANK/SALARY: Salary competitive, nine month contract
START DATE: August 2010

Review of applications will begin on November 15th, 2009 and continue until the position is filled.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
A Ph.D. in Art History is required. Teaching experience at the college level is required. The applicant should be either a Generalist with demonstrated interest in Contemporary Art, or credentialed in Modern and/or Contemporary Art. All applicants must show a demonstrated ability to teach art history survey courses as well as upper level courses in various areas of specialization. ABD may be considered. However, the Ph.D. degree must be completed prior to tenure consideration.

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the following:
Ability to teach general and specialized Art History courses along with Art Appreciation courses to majors and non-majors;
Experience or familiarity with facilities supervision and security;
Experience or familiarity with exhibition and collections management; and
Familiarity or experience with standard museum and art handling practices.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Preference will be given to candidates with a Ph.D. as a Generalist, Modernist or Contemporary Art Historian with a demonstrated ability to teach art history survey courses as well as within a specialization.

In addition, the candidate will be able to demonstrate the following:
Experience with the supervision of personnel;
Experience with the oversight and maintenance of professional budgets;
Experience with community outreach, fundraising and institutional planning.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
The Museum Director is responsible for all day-to-day museum operations, and is charged with providing effective leadership, management, curatorial oversight, and academic vision for the Dishman Art Museum. Oversight responsibilities will include the supervision of one full time staff assistant and student assistants; managing museum budgets and expenses; facilities maintenance and security; curatorial and other exhibition activities; supervision of exhibition installation; and collections care and management. The director will develop and oversee the museum’s fundraising and outreach programming. The director will build productive relationships with faculty, students, and members of the broader arts community both locally and regionally (.50). Teaching responsibilities will include two undergraduate courses per long semester in art history and/or art appreciation (.50) as needed. The position includes the possibility of an occasional instructional assignment at the graduate level. The director reports directly to the chair of the Department of Art.

APPLICATION:
The applicant must submit an online application form at https://jobs.lamar.edu along with the following as uploaded attachments: a letter of application, curriculum vitae, two examples of scholarly work, examples of course syllabi and course outlines (if available), teaching philosophy, and the names of 3 references (with addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses).

Requested items not available as attachments should be sent to:

D. Meeks, Chair, Department of Art
College of Fine Arts and Communication
Lamar University
c/o Human Resources
P.O. Box 11127
Beaumont, Texas 77710

Lamar University, Beaumont is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Women and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.

This position is security-sensitive and thereby subject to the provisions of the Texas Education Code §51.215.

THE DEPARTMENT OF ART

A member of The Texas State University System, Lamar University offers more than 150 programs of study that lead to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at this culturally diverse, metropolitan university. Lamar faculty are strongly committed to teaching excellence combined with research. The eight-story Mary and John Gray library includes resources that exceed 1,000,000 volumes and has electronic access to millions more. With an enrollment exceeding 14,000 and growing, Lamar continues to offer a personalized environment and a student/faculty ratio that focuses on individual success. Lamar University has been recognized as one of 2009’s Great Colleges to Work For by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the nation’s leading source of news for and about colleges and universities.

The mission of the Department of Art is to provide an environment designed to nurture artistic, academic and personal growth in Lamar University students. Through its curricula and community outreach, the department prepares the art student for a professional career with courses in practice, theory, art history, and art education. Educational, cultural, and academic opportunities are made available so that each student may reach his or her full potential by participating in those human experiences and qualities inherent in the fine arts. As the visual arts engage rapid change, the department maintains a balance between its own traditions and the unknown challenges of the future. The Art program emphasizes the development of skill building and theoretical insight by exploring the products of the human hand and the new opportunities offered by advancing technology. Art majors are required to take three lower level art history survey courses covering the evolution of art from prehistoric times to the present. Students may choose their required upper level courses from a focus on the Renaissance, Asian art, Nineteenth or Twentieth century art, and topics in contemporary art.

THE DISHMAN ART MUSEUM

As a component of the Department of Art, the Dishman Art Museum delivers Lamar University’s mission to the community. Located on the campus, the museum is immediately adjacent to the main instructional facility. It provides one of the finest collegiate exhibition spaces in the state of Texas with two changing exhibition galleries, a two-story permanent collection gallery, preparation area, and a 109 seat lecture hall with both slide and video projection facilities for Art History courses. (The gross square footage of the facility is 10,205 with approximately 5,000 square feet of exhibition space.) Of particular note, Art History undergraduate and graduate students enjoy hands-on research opportunities working with original works of art in the museum’s permanent collection.

The Dishman Art Museum opened its doors in 1983 with the generous support of Herb and Kate Dishman. Since that time, it has been serving the campus and the community with an active schedule of monthly art exhibitions. The Dishman also hosts special performances and cultural events by renowned artists, performers, and scholars, free and open to the public. Since 1983, the gallery has housed a permanent collection including the Heinz and Ruth Eisenstadt Collection, the Robert Willis Print Collection, tribal art from Africa and New Guinea, and other collections. It continues to actively collect contemporary works of art.

In 1992, an addition to the facility was generously funded by the Dishman family and constructed to hold and permanently display the valuable Heinz and Ruth Eisenstadt Collection, donated to the Dishman in 1992. The collection consists of 147 paintings, 6 sculptures, 6 display cases, a 13 piece dining room suite, and 252 porcelains, primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a result of this acquisition and continuing collection activity, the Dishman Art Gallery, as it was known, was officially renamed the Dishman Art Museum in June 2004, symbolizing both our mission to broaden audiences and our commitment to the continued development of the permanent collection.

Annual events include exhibitions and lectures by visiting artists, Le Grand Bal art auction (part of the college’s primary fundraising activity), a national juried competition, an annual art faculty exhibition, and undergraduate and graduate student thesis exhibitions. Tours of all exhibitions, including the Heinz and Ruth Eisenstadt Collection, are provided free of charge to the university community and to the public. Exhibition spaces and the lecture hall are available to university and public groups by request and according to availability.