I am writing to share with you an exciting opportunity in the chemistry department at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Although we are in the midst of a global pandemic, our department is in a unique position to hire a tenure-track faculty member, and we want to make sure our position is shared broadly within the chemistry community. Your program may not be familiar with our institution and what we are doing to support the professional development of faculty and students in Chemistry, so we are sharing here some highlights and encourage broad dissemination of this information with interested candidates from your department.
TCNJ is a public, selective primarily undergraduate institution located between Philadelphia and New York City (both are about an hour away) with an enrollment of approximately 7,000 undergraduates. Our college has earned national recognition for its commitment to excellence, which includes the highest freshman retention rate (94%) and the 7th highest four-year graduation rate (76%) in the northern region of the US. In addition, TCNJ is committed to being an antiracist campus. It houses several faculty and staff affinity groups including the Minority Executive Council, Women’s Professional Network, Parenting Network, LGBTQ+ Pride, and Multicultural Greek Affinity Groups.
The chemistry department at TCNJ has a long and consistent track record in the training, teaching, professional development, and mentoring of undergraduates of diverse backgrounds. Although TCNJ is a small institution, over the past ten years we have seen an increasing demand for the chemistry major (currently at 30-35 majors per year), along with changing demographics of our majors (10% from underrepresented groups in mid 2000’s to 19% in 2009-2015). Additionally, over the past 15 years, 52% of our chemistry graduates have been women and 24% have come from other underrepresented groups. We continue to see an increase in students of color graduating from the chemistry major (5% in 2004 to 30% in 2019). Our successes in increasing representation of women and students from underrepresented groups are attributed to the development of novel programs and curricula to support all students regardless of their backgrounds. We have done this through systemic changes to create more equity in the classroom and research laboratories. While these changes began with faculty grassroots efforts, we are fortunate to now be supported by an Inclusive Excellence grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The Department has been privileged to receive several capital improvements, including the construction of a new Chemistry building that houses state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation. As a result of these changes and efforts, significant redesign of our chemistry curriculum has resulted in improvements in course delivery, interest, and learning for students from not only underrepresented groups, but for students of all backgrounds.
Details for our faculty search, the area, TCNJ chemistry, and application details can be found at: https://chemistry.tcnj.edu/2020/10/22/assistant-professor-in-chemistry/
We are hosting informal information sessions on October 28th at 4:30 pm and November 12th at 1 pm (Eastern Time) for candidates to learn more about our inclusive teaching practices, resources, and research. We will also answer questions about our current faculty search, departmental resources, and the application process. To receive an event link we request an RSVP by responding to the following survey https://forms.gle/LBqjRzKHV81ZqGGj9. We will follow up with instructions and a link to folks that sign up.
We hope you will share this information broadly and we look forward to seeing applications from your department/program.
