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The Music Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz invites applications for an appointment as Assistant Teaching Professor of Sound and Media Arts from artist-educators whose practice engages creative coding, sound, and media arts through ethical and critical approaches to technology, and who demonstrate a deep commitment to pedagogical excellence.

The successful candidate would join the faculty of the Music Department as an Assistant Teaching Professor, and would join the core faculty of UCSC’s Creative Technologies program, a multi-departmental, online undergraduate major whose faculty are dedicated to advanced, innovative web-based arts and design pedagogy, and a curriculum that cultivates imagination, justice, and empowered community in digital contexts.

The UCSC Music Department and the Creative Technologies program seek an Assistant Teaching Professor of Sound and Media Arts who will teach courses and mentor students in creative coding, sound studies, and media arts practice including sound art or electronic music. Additional teaching areas may include: generative and algorithmic approaches to design and media; physical computing; interactive, participatory, and/or performance-based digital media; music composition; ethical and critical approaches to emerging technologies in contemporary art; and other courses according to the selected candidate's areas of expertise.

The position is situated within a creative community whose practice is grounded in questions of justice, equity, and social engagement–and in which these are not peripheral concerns but central to how we make, teach, and think about art and technology.

The successful candidate must have practical proficiencies in one or more technologies from each of the following categories: digital audio workstations (e.g., Reaper, Logic, Live, ProTools), real-time multimedia production (e.g., Max/MSP/Jitter, Pure Data, SuperCollider, Orca), and creative coding environments (e.g., Processing, p5.js, openFrameworks). Note that the category examples are not exhaustive and may include other open-source and/or custom applications.

Along with the aforementioned software proficiencies, the successful candidate must have working expertise in one or more programming languages, with preference for those that have relevant application to creative coding, media arts, real-time performance, and sound design/music (e.g., JavaScript, Python, C#).

Areas of specialization may include, but are not limited to:

• Accessibility-focused and disability-justice-focused media practices, including universal and anti-ableist design
• Critical and historical approaches to sound and listening
• Spatial audio and immersive media
• Socially engaged and community-centered practice
• Ethical and critical approaches to machine learning and artificial intelligence
• Game art and interactive media platforms

The primary responsibilities for Teaching Professors are (1) teaching; (2) professional and/or scholarly achievement and activity, including creative activity, especially as such activities relate to instruction and pedagogy, with impact beyond one’s own classroom; and (3) University and public service. The ideal candidate will have significant experience teaching in online and remote-access environments, and facility with hybrid and web-based pedagogical tools.

We welcome applicants who define their creative work broadly and inclusively, across or transcending traditional disciplinary, genre, or media categories, and who have significant experience in modes of production that center collaborative approaches and/or challenge conventional notions of authorship and audience. We value candidates who bring an ethos that foregrounds approaches and methods over specific tools, and who demonstrate familiarity, adaptability, and critical perspectives, toward both proprietary software practices and FLOSS (Free/Libre Open-Source Software) practices—including personal and community-developed software.

We welcome and encourage national and international applicants working in any of a wide range of creative practices, including one or more of the general areas described above, but not limited to them.

The Music Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz is a community that attracts students who improvise, compose, experiment, and explore collaborative creative goals, all with a sense of freedom to cross traditional silos of genre and scholarship. The department is led by a multidisciplinary faculty of musicians, musicologists, technologists, anthropologists, and composers, including specialists in performance, African American and Global African musical traditions, experimental music, Hindustani musics, Central Asian musics, traditional and contemporary Korean musics, popular culture, Mexican folk music and Chicano music, aural diversity, Hip-Hop, and communal music practices. We offer undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees, including a scholarship-focused PhD and a composition-focused Doctorate of Musical Arts; we host, annually, the internationally recognized April in Santa Cruz Festival of Creative Music, and, periodically, the Pacific Rim Music Festival.

The UCSC Creative Technologies program—the first online major program in the University of California system— features a multi-departmental curriculum, teaching creative work and its contexts, across disciplines and departments, emphasizing digital environments as a nurturing nexus for justice, community, and imagination. Its faculty specialize in experimental media, critical games scholarship, digital design, collaborative practices, media history, and the study of voice, sound, and speech. This online program allows UCSC Arts students to transcend departments and genres, transcend the physical space of its campus, and bridge geographically and economically remote communities. The UCSC Music Department is joined by the Art Department and the Department of Performance, Play, and Design, as well as faculty from other Arts Division Programs, in supporting the Creative Technologies major.

UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) with a high proportion of first-generation and low-income students. We welcome candidates who understand the historical barriers that exist in higher education and who can clearly articulate how their teaching, mentoring, creative/professional activity, and service contribute towards building a just scholarly community.

The Assistant Teaching Professor title confers the rights and responsibilities of membership in the UCSC and UC Academic Senates. Appointees to this title are eligible for promotion to Associate Teaching Professor, which is analogous to tenure. The Associate Teaching Professor and Teaching Professor titles confer the rights and responsibilities of membership in the UCSC and UC Academic Senates, and appointees to these titles have security of employment which is analogous to tenure.

As a condition of employment, the finalist will be required to disclose if they are subject to any final administrative or judicial decisions within the last seven years determining that they committed any misconduct.

• “Misconduct” means any violation of the policies or laws governing conduct at the applicant’s previous place of employment, including, but not limited to, violations of policies or laws prohibiting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other forms of harassment or discrimination, as defined by the employer.
• UC Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment Policy
• UC Anti-Discrimination Policy
• APM - 035: Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination in Employment

The University of California 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 origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy.

If you need accommodation due to a disability, please contact Disability Management Services at jobaccommodations@ucsc.edu or (831) 459-4602.

Notice of Availability: In compliance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (the Clery Act), UCSC publishes an Annual Security and Fire Safety Report. This report is published by October 1st of each year and includes current institutional policies and procedures concerning campus safety and security; fire safety and evacuation policies; sexual misconduct and relationship violence reporting and response protocols; and crime and fire statistics for the three previous calendar years. A paper copy of the ASFSR is available upon request by contacting the UCSC Police Department at 114 Carriage House Rd., Santa Cruz, CA 95064, or by calling 831-459-2231 Ext. 1.

Under Federal law, the University of California may employ only individuals who are legally able to work in the United States as established by providing documents as specified in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Certain UCSC positions funded by federal contracts or sub-contracts require the selected candidate to pass an E-Verify check. The university sponsors employment-based visas for nonresidents who are offered academic appointments at UC Santa Cruz, as outlined in campus policy CAPM 102.530.

UCSC is a smoke & tobacco-free campus.

The University of California offers a competitive benefits package and a number of programs to support employee work/life balance.

As a University employee, you will be required to comply with all applicable University policies and/or collective bargaining agreements, as may be amended from time to time. Federal, state, or local government directives may impose additional requirements.

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