Dear colleagues,
In my June 22 communication to College faculty and staff about the School of Civic Life and Leadership, I said that I would be issuing a call for nominations for the initial faculty. These faculty will take on the task of launching the school, for which the University has allocated $2 million in continuing funds in this year’s budget. The formal call for nominations, including self-nominations, is below.
The initial faculty, who will be selected from within the College of Arts and Sciences, will be the ones who will begin developing any potential curriculum for the school, recommending new hires and crafting the school’s vision, and they will of course follow normal University and College processes in these tasks, including seeking curricular approval through the College’s administrative boards.
As I have stated previously, this is our opportunity to make this school a national model for public discourse and civic engagement. I am confident that our talented faculty will articulate a vision for the school that is uniquely Carolina and beneficial to our students and to the world outside our campus walls.
Sincerely,
Jim
Jim White
Craver Family Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
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CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
The College of Arts and Sciences seeks to appoint members of the College’s faculty to serve as initial faculty for the new School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCLL). (Future calls for nominations will include all faculty across the university, but for this initial call, the focus is on recruiting tenured faculty from the College.)
The initial faculty will have the rare opportunity to build an interdisciplinary school that takes advantage of UNC-Chapel Hill’s distinctive strengths. They will play a central leadership role in developing SCLL, for more fully articulating a vision for SCLL’s mission, for building its administrative infrastructure and procedures, and for overseeing the hiring of additional faculty and staff.
As proposed by the Ad Hoc Committee on SCLL in the College, the current model is that SCLL will (1) provide a home specifically for the study and practice of public discourse, civic life and civic leadership; (2) provide an intellectual grounding in democracy and the American political experience; and (3) serve to support conversations and research on these topics.
Members of the initial faculty must be tenured. Appointments in SCLL will be 50% secondary appointments, with their tenure remaining in their current home department, and will be staggered in duration. Members will be compensated for their time and effort.
Nominations and self-nominations should be sent to SCLLfaculty@unc.edu by Aug. 31. Nominations should include the name, rank and department affiliation of the nominee, along with a copy of their CV and a short (<300-word) explanation of why they would be a good fit for SCLL. The SCLL Faculty Interest Committee (Donna Gilleskie, economics; Matthew Kotzen, philosophy; Douglas MacKay, public policy; Avi-Dan Santo, communication; Jeff Spinner-Halev, political science; and Sarah Treul, Program for Public Discourse) will conduct short interviews with nominees beginning Aug. 15, and will make a recommendation to College of Arts and Sciences Dean Jim White by mid-September.