The Department of Special Education at Texas Tech University invites applications from innovative and thoughtful colleagues to join our faculty at the rank of an Assistant Professor in Visual Impairment/Orientation and Mobility. This full-time, tenure-track position with a nine-month academic year appointment will start on September 1, 2023
Texas Tech University is the flagship of the Texas Tech University System and a Carnegie Tier One research university. The current enrollment is nearly 40,000 students. As a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution, Texas Tech University seeks to foster an environment that promotes inclusive access and attracts committed and high-achieving students. We are dedicated to recruiting and retaining a diverse group of faculty to educate and empower our diverse student body while also serving an extremely vast and diverse state and nation with an increasingly culturally pluralistic population. The university has also been awarded the Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization by NAFSA: Association of International Educators twice in the last four years.
Lubbock, Texas (Pop. 260,000) is an outstanding place to live and work. This growing city, with its college-town feel, has a remarkable history and a vital future. Lubbock is the commercial, agricultural, medical, financial, and cultural hub of the South Plains. The City of Lubbock and Texas Tech University enjoy an exceptionally cooperative and supportive relationship extending from community health to cotton crop production, from wind energy to education. Lubbock is nationally recognized as an outstanding place to raise a family and offers ease of access for commuting across town or travel across the nation. Depending on one’s personal preferences, there are plenty of recreational opportunities and a wide variety of restaurants and shopping, community events, and cultural activities including breweries and wine bars, a vibrant live-music scene, along with more traditional performing arts.
The Texas Tech University College of Education, with over 2,000 students, offers a nationally recognized undergraduate teacher preparation program and 21 graduate degrees that prepare students for professional or academic positions in education. The Department of Special Education and the College place a focus on strategic outreach and engaged scholarship. We collaborate with local, regional, state, national, and global partners to address complex problems facing individuals and communities. In recognition of its extraordinary community outreach efforts, the college received a 2018 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).
The Department of Special Education offers a competitive graduate program that is growing both nationally and internationally. We are a diverse community of scholars, researchers, and educators with a commitment to excellence in education and serving EC-12 public schools and beyond.
Our Visual Impairment (VI) and Orientation and Mobility (O&M) Programs have graduate level certification and master’s programs specializing in one of these areas as well as a Ph.D. program in Special Education where doctoral students can focus their interests and research in visual impairment or O&M. The VI program is accredited by Texas Education Agency and the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), and the O&M program is approved by the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) and accredited by the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals (ACVREP).
There is a current shortage nationwide of these two vision professionals, so there is a great need to train more highly qualified teachers of students with visual impairments (TSVIs) and orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists. We need a highly qualified applicant with knowledge and credentials in both of these specialized professional areas to meet the needs of our growing programs.
Applicants should be committed to collaborating with faculty across the disciplines to engage in rigorous and theoretically grounded research approaches for understanding and improving the educational experiences of students with visual impairments in the United States. In addition, candidates who have very strong records of scholarship supported by external funding and who have the proven capacity or clear potential to bring externally sponsored research to Texas Tech University are encouraged to apply. The salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.
Responsibilities of the successful candidate:
- Teach graduate courses in both the visual impairment and orientation and mobility programs as assigned by the program coordinators and the Department.
- Help the Department continue to grow a strong and reputable personnel preparation program at the certification, master’s, and doctoral levels.
- Serve as an advisor and mentor for certification, master’s, and doctoral students and participate on doctoral committees.
- Collaborate and cooperate with colleagues to fulfill the needs of the programs and the strategic goals of the Programs, Department, and College.
- Establish and maintain a rigorous research agenda with publications.
- Actively recruit students for all levels of the programs.
- Actively participate in service for Department, College, and University committees as well as with stakeholders and professional organizations.
- Actively seek external funding and participate in grant writing with colleagues.
- Develop and foster partnerships with school districts, regional and state agencies, other colleges and universities, and stakeholders for engaged scholarship and collaboration.
- Participate in local, state, national, and international professional organizations.
- Adherence to robust safety practices and compliance with all applicable health and safety regulations are responsibilities of all TTU employees.
Required Qualifications:
- An earned doctorate in Special Education or a closely related field by August 2023.
- EC-12 teaching experience in visual impairment or orientation and mobility.
- Certification in visual impairment and orientation and mobility.
- Evidence of an emerging research agenda in visual impairment or orientation and mobility.
- Commitment to high standards in teaching and evaluation.
- Commitment to collaborating with program faculty to meet program needs.
- Ability to contribute to a positive work environment in the Department, College, and University.
- A demonstrated and ongoing commitment to serving diverse student populations.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in teaching visual impairment and orientation and mobility courses at the university level.
- Evidence of a clear research agenda in visual impairment education or orientation and mobility, including publications in peer-reviewed journals.
- Experience in advising doctoral students or serving on doctoral committees.
- Evidence of participation in professional organizations at local, state, national, and international levels.
- Evidence of leadership abilities.
- Evidence of knowledge, skills, and experience in teaching online distance education courses.
- Evidence of seeking external grant funding.
- Commitment to developing partnerships with stakeholders for engaged scholarship.
- Experience working with diverse student populations is highly desirable.
Application Instructions:
Interested candidates must submit application materials online at the TTU Personnel Employment website: https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Search/Home/Home?partnerid=25898&siteid=5637#jobDetails=724147_5637
The following documents must be submitted by July 31, 2023:
- Letter of application
- Current curriculum vitae
- Unofficial graduate transcripts
- One sample publication
- List of three references with complete addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses
For more information about the position, please contact the search committee Chair, Dr. Rona Pogrund at rona.pogrund@ttu.edu.
