2024-2025 FAS Ladder Search Process
To: FAS Department and Program Chairs (effective July 1, 2024)
Cc: FAS Steering Committee; Faculty Resource Committee; FAS Dean’s Office Staff; FAS Chairs’ Assistants, Operations Managers, and Lead Administrators; SEAS Dean’s Office
[Summary: This message offers guidance on the FAS ladder search process for 2024-25 academic year.]
Dear Colleagues,
I write on behalf of the FAS Faculty Resource Committee (FRC) with information about the 2024-25 search process. Below you will find details about the search timeline and search request process for the upcoming academic year. The deadline for proposals for searches to take place in 2024-25 is March 29, 2024. For chairs who are new to this process, the FAS Dean’s Office is happy to offer support and guidance. Your first point of contact should be your current divisional dean: Kathryn Lofton (Humanities, until July 1), Marc Robinson (Humanities, beginning July 1), Ken Scheve (Social Science), or Larry Gladney (Science).
Background
We expect to authorize a healthy number of searches for the 2024-25 academic year as we approach our target ladder faculty size. Searches will support continued expansion in data-intensive social science and other emerging fields, departmental renewal made possible by vacancies, and modest additional flexibility across the FAS more broadly. Our search capacity in the coming year is determined by the additional FAS faculty slots announced in 2022 in combination with regular turnover from retirements and departures, and additional area-specific opportunities made available through gift-funded initiatives.
New searches
The new searches most likely to be authorized in 2024-25 are those that receive strong intellectual support from the relevant divisional advisory committee (TAC) and for which a suitable supporting slot can be identified. In the 2024-25 search cycle, as we did in 2023-24, we will be placing strong emphasis on searches at the junior (assistant professor) level. While there may be exceptional circumstances under which a search at the tenured level will be authorized, requests to conduct searches for tenured hires should be preceded by a discussion with your divisional dean and submitted to the FRC with a detailed rationale for the exception, following the request process described below.
Continuing searches
If you have an unresolved search from the 2023-24 academic year (that is, a search that did not result in the selection or appointment of a candidate), you may request that the search be continued, suspended, or discontinued by emailing fas.dean@yale.edu.
If you have a previously approved search from 2022-23 that was suspended during the 2023-24 academic year, you may request that the search be continued by emailing fas.dean@yale.edu.
If you have an unresolved search from the 2023-24 academic year and you wish to modify the search to focus on a different area or rank, you must submit a new search request. We encourage you to speak with your divisional dean about how best to describe such requests.
We realize that this year’s searches and other comings-and-goings may not have resolved until late in the semester and that in some cases you will be making requests contingent on those outcomes. While we plan to have a list of most of the approved 2024-25 searches by mid-June, we will leave some search approvals and slots in reserve to accommodate late requests that are the result of unanticipated events and of late-breaking opportunities throughout the year.
Questions?
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to either your divisional dean, associate dean Jason Zentz, or fas.dean@yale.edu.
2024-25 faculty search request timeline
March | Departments should undertake discussions of search priorities early in the semester in anticipation of the March 29 deadline.
March 29, 2024 | Departments’ search proposals should be submitted to the FAS Dean’s Office using the form available at http://fas.yale.edu/fas-search-request-form. (Late requests may also be submitted, but we may not be able to respond to such requests on the timetable that follows.)
April | Area advisory committees will review requests for searches and prepare recommendations for review by the Faculty Resource Committee (FRC).
April, May, and June | The FRC will meet regularly during the months of April and May to discuss and approve search requests for 2024-25. We hope to be able to provide responses to the majority of spring requests by the middle of June.
June, July, August | Late-breaking search requests will be considered by a summer subcommittee of the FRC.
Request process
Search requests should be submitted using the online form available at http://fas.yale.edu/fas-search-request-form. If you are proposing a joint search with another department or program in the FAS, only one unit needs to submit the request. If you are proposing a joint search with a department or program in SEAS, the FAS department should propose the case to the FRC after consultation with the SEAS Dean’s Office. For this year, please work with Kristin Flower who will direct you as needed. Please do not submit such a request unless both units have agreed on the area and level for the proposed search.
Included in a search request should be answers to the following questions:
Basic information
- Area: In what area(s) are you proposing to search? (3–5-word short description of area)
- Rank: Is the request for a junior, junior/mid-career, senior, or open-rank position? Most search approvals for 2024-25 will be at the junior level. If your request is not at the junior level, please provide a detailed explanation for why the request is at a different rank.
Strategic overview
Why is this an important area for your unit to search in? How will it contribute to Yale’s commitment to supporting research and teaching in areas of enduring importance? How does this search fit into your department/program/division’s long-term plans, in terms of research, teaching, and commitment to diversity and excellence and in terms of teaching? Keeping in mind that devoting a ladder slot to an area means making a multi-decade commitment, how important do you expect this area to be in the next decades, as your field evolves?
Specific questions
Please ensure that you specifically address each of the following issues. (Where appropriate, your answer may involve directing the FRC to the relevant section of your strategic overview.)
- Diversity and excellence: Is a search in this area likely to produce a diverse field of excellent candidates? If not, how might the area of search be shifted or broadened to allow consideration of a broad and diverse range of candidates of the highest caliber?
- Teaching and mentoring: What role would you expect the candidate to play in the teaching and mentoring of undergraduates (including majors, non-majors, and students in cross- and interdisciplinary programs), of graduate students, and (where relevant) the mentoring of post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty? How does this fit into your department or program’s long-term teaching plans?
- Space: In what office/laboratory space do you propose to house the candidate? No search will be approved without a specific space plan. Over the next few years, space may be the limiting factor in authorizing certain searches.
- Additional resource needs: What other resource needs will be associated with the hire (laboratory renovations, library investments, special teaching facilities, equipment and setup funds, graduate student support, etc.)?
- Prioritization: If your department or program is requesting more than one new search for 2024-25, please rank these searches clearly in relation to one another. Leaving them unranked defers judgment of your unit’s priorities to the FRC.
Concluding thoughts
We welcome your feedback and suggestions for future improvements to the faculty search authorization process, and we look forward to receiving your departments’ and programs’ requests.
Yours,
Tamar
Tamar Gendler
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy
Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science
Faculty Resource Committee
Voting Faculty Members
Tamar Szabó Gendler | Committee Chair; Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, FAS
Julia Adams | Margaret H. Marshall Professor of Sociology, FAS
Lauren Benton | Barton M. Biggs Professor of History, FAS
Lynn Cooley | Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; C. N. H. Long Professor of Genetics and Professor of Cell Biology and of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale School of Medicine
Larry Gladney | FAS Dean of Science; Chair, Physical Science & Engineering Advisory Committee; Phyllis A. Wallace Dean of Dean of Diversity and Faculty Development; Professor of Physics, FAS
Pericles Lewis | Dean of Yale College; Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature, FAS
Kathryn Lofton | Chair, Humanities Advisory Committee; FAS Dean of Humanities; Lex Hixon Professor of Religious Studies, of American Studies, of History, and of Divinity, FAS and Yale Divinity School
Kenneth Scheve | Chair, Social Science Advisory Committee; FAS Dean of Social Science; Dean Acheson Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs, FAS and Jackson School of Global Affairs
Yajaira Suarez | Chair, Biological Science Advisory Committee; Anthony N. Brady Professor of Comparative Medicine and of Pathology; Deputy Chair, Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine
Mary-Louise Timmermans | Damon Wells Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, FAS
Laura Wexler | Charles H. Farnam Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and of American Studies, FAS
Fabrizio Zilibotti | Tuntex Professor of International and Development Economics, FAS
Non-Voting Advisory Staff
John Mangan | FAS Dean of Faculty Affairs; Senior Associate Dean
Taylor Mascari | Senior Administrative Assistant, FAS Dean’s Office
Pamela Schirmeister | Deputy Dean of Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Anne Shutkin | Chief of Staff, FAS Dean’s Office
Jason Zentz | FAS Associate Dean