Job Details
Assistant or Associate Professor of Sustainability & Environmental Studies
Location: Granville, Ohio
Position Type: Tenure Track Faculty
Position URL: https://apply.interfolio.com/192590
The Denison University Sustainability & Environmental Studies (SES) program invites applications for a full-time tenure track position at the Assistant or Associate Professor level, beginning August 2027. We seek a colleague with an academic background in sustainability and environmental studies, a capacity for working across disciplinary boundaries, a commitment to supporting student learning in the liberal arts, and a specialty that complements the scholarly interests and teaching expertise of…
our current program faculty. Our program emphasizes experiential learning and robust community engagement. Through a broad array of liberal arts tools, we prepare students to be creative problem-solvers. Please see https://denison.edu/academics/sustainability-environmental-studies for more information.
We are especially interested in candidates whose research and teaching advance innovation at the intersection of environmental sustainability, social change, and entrepreneurship. While we welcome applicants from all environmental specialties, we particularly seek teacher-scholars who take a social scientific approach to the study of organizational sustainability, environmental justice, sustainable development, sustainability analytics, law and policy, design, environmental education, or related areas, with a preference for a teaching and scholarly focus outside of the United States. We value interdisciplinary approaches that bridge theory, practice, and community engagement.
Qualifications
Essential Job Functions
The successful candidate will be capable of teaching all courses in the core of our curriculum: SES 100 Introduction to Sustainability & Environmental Studies; SES 200 Environmental Analysis; SES 301 Sustainability Practicum; and SES 401 Senior Project (see course descriptions at https://denison.edu/academics/sustainability-environmental-studies/courses) and advanced courses in the candidate’s area of expertise. The teaching load (typically 5 courses per year) will include sections of the core curriculum and advanced courses to meet the needs of the program. The successful candidate will also be a productive scholar who has demonstrated engagement in environmental sustainability initiatives with the broader community. Denison faculty are expected to maintain an active research agenda that results in scholarly publication and supports continued professional growth. The successful candidate will participate fully in the intellectual life of the SES program and the college through teaching, advising, scholarship, and service.
Minimum Qualifications
Candidates are required to have a Ph.D. in an appropriate discipline by August 2027. The successful candidate will: be an outstanding teacher who can teach effectively at all levels of our core curriculum; offer advanced courses that complement our current curricular strengths; be an active and engaging scholar; demonstrate a strong commitment to liberal arts education; and demonstrate the capacity to participate in a community-based interdisciplinary program. The successful candidate will have demonstrated expertise in environmental sustainability with an emphasis on innovation, social change, and/or entrepreneurship.
Preferred Qualifications
Previous teaching experience and a scholarly and teaching focus outside the United States are preferred but not required. Demonstrated community engagement in environmental sustainability initiatives is also of importance to the program.
Application Instructions
Applicants must submit their application materials via Interfolio at https://apply.interfolio.com/192590. Applications received by October 12, 2026 will receive full consideration. Review of applications will continue until the position is filled. Dossiers should include: a cover letter; CV; 2 page statement of teaching philosophy addressing the candidate's approach to environmental sustainability in a liberal arts setting; a 2 page statement on the candidate’s scholarly agenda; and the names and contact information for three professional references. Reference letters will be requested for top candidates at a later date.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Denison University is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, veteran status, or other legally protected classes.
Title IX Notice: Sex discrimination is prohibited by federal law through Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Denison does not discriminate on the basis of sex in the education programs or activities that it operates including admissions and employment. For Denison's official Notice of Non-Discrimination, please visit https://denison.edu/forms/non-discrimination-notice. You can learn more about Title IX at Denison at https://denison.edu/campus/title-ix.
Job seekers who may need a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should contact the Office of Human Resources at (740) 587-6299 or by email at HR@denison.edu.
Organization
As one of the nation's leading liberal arts colleges, Denison offers an authentic education in the fine arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. Founded in 1831, Denison is one of the earliest colleges to be established in the old “Northwest Territory,” west of the Allegheny Mountains and north of the Ohio River. Denison is located in Granville, Ohio; 27 miles east of Columbus, the state capital.
Innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of independent thinking. And because Denison is a residential college, students are deeply engaged as citizens of the campus community. They learn from one another in a rigorous academic setting, but also in rich social, cultural and political environments.
As a residential undergraduate liberal arts college, Denison is among those places that have been called “distinctively American” in their contribution to higher education worldwide. In fact, it is one of a select number of institutions that today defines the type.
Confident in the distinction of its graduates and advantaged by unusual resources, Denison has pointedly resisted the tendency in higher education to add layers of graduate degrees, professional schools, and service functions beyond the scope of baccalaureate education of the highest order. Entering its 177th year, Denison has maintained a fully residential campus based upon the well-tested premise that learning flourishes in community.
Denison selectively admits successful, confident, and motivated students who seek to take advantage of highly participatory learning within classroom, laboratory, and studio and who expect to learn and grow through their investment in the challenges and opportunities of college life. The college attracts matriculants from across the country and more than three dozen nations. Denison engages students with outstanding professors in small classes that encourage men and women to take a high degree of personal responsibility for learning. Students pursue a major field of study selected from 39 areas offered by 28 disciplinary departments and interdisciplinary programs in the divisions of Natural Science, Humanities, Social Science, and Fine Arts as well as complete a sequence of General Education and a personalized curriculum of electives from across the college.
A Denison education is not just for a living but for a life. Denison graduates are educated to be curious, resourceful, and reflective. They are expected to begin a life of learning at Denison, not complete it. They are well prepared for the rapidly changing world of the 21st century.
Nothing defines a Denison education more than the mutually enriching relationships that develop between students and faculty. The heart of the college is a full-time faculty of almost 200. These men and women, who hold the most advanced degrees in their fields, are selected on the basis of pedagogical and scholarly ability and are encouraged to be innovative teachers whose continuing growth in their discipline through active scholarship allows them to be among the best at their craft. They look forward to the challenge and stimulation of their students even as they seek to draw the best efforts from them. Many Denison students come to regard professors as mentors, who frequently oversee students' independent scholarly projects.
Denison’s faculty is committed to undergraduate education. As teacher-scholar-advisers, their principal responsibility is effective teaching informed by the best scholarship. Faculty members place a priority on working closely with students, interactive learning, and partnerships with students in original research. Denison’s low student/faculty ratio allows for close supervision of independent research and collaborative work in small groups and classes.
At Denison, men and women learn and grow in community, and the residential character of the campus is more than a convenience but a way of engaging the full student body in a shared enterprise. The college actively seeks academically superior students who bring diverse talents, interests, backgrounds, and experiences, believing that out of the classroom as well as within learning takes place by sharing, questioning, and growing together. Denison students have unusual opportunities to participate in the arts, in athletics and recreation, in service to others beyond the campus, in student organizational life, and in campus governance.
