2025-26 FAS Ladder Faculty Search Request Process

To: FAS Department and Program Chairs
Cc: FAS Steering; FAS Faculty Resource Committee; FAS Dean's Office; FAS Chair's Assistants, Operations Managers, and Lead Administrators; SEAS Dean's Office

Dear colleagues,

I write on behalf of the FAS Faculty Resource Committee (FRC) with information about the ladder faculty search request process for the 2025-26 academic year. The deadline for proposals is March 28, 2025.

We have had many hiring successes in recent years, and the FAS is now at an all-time high in numbers of faculty. As of fall 2024, there are 646 ladder faculty with primary or fully joint appointments in the FAS, and we have reached 97.6% of our filled slot target of 637 set by the Provost. Accounting for expected departures and ongoing and recently completed searches, we anticipate that we will reach or surpass our overall target size in fall 2025. This does not mean we will be unable to authorize new searches in 2025-26, but it does mean that we will have less room to do so than in the past few years.

The Provost's recent Spring 2025 University Budget Update also reminds us that, given budgetary uncertainty, all units across the university including FAS should focus on areas of greatest need, with respect to scholarship, research, and teaching. The announced expansion of Yale College also makes it especially important that we think about adding some faculty in areas of greatest teaching need, and the FAS has been given some additional slots to do this.

Given the major limitations on central campus space and the number of building projects underway, as well as some recent pauses in capital projects, we are also asking for as much detailed information as possible on space plans for your proposed searches.

New searches

The new searches most likely to be authorized in 2025-26 are those that, in addition to being in areas of greatest need, receive strong intellectual support from the relevant divisional advisory committee (TAC) and for which a suitable supporting slot can be identified. In the 2025-26 search cycle, as we did in recent years, 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 2024-25 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 2023-24 that was suspended during the 2024-25 academic year, you may request that the search be continued by emailing fas.dean@yale.edu.

If you have an unresolved search from the 2024-25 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 2025-26 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, senior associate dean Jason Zentz, or fas.dean@yale.edu.

2025-26 ladder faculty search request timeline

March | Academic units should undertake discussions of search priorities early in the semester in anticipation of the March 28 deadline.

March 28, 2025 | Search proposals should be submitted to the FAS Dean's Office using the online form. Note: The form must be submitted for each individual search request. (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 (TACs) 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 2025-26. We hope to be able to provide responses to the majority of spring requests by the middle of June.

June, July, and August | Late-breaking search requests will be considered by a summer subcommittee of the FRC.

Request process

Search requests must be submitted using the online form. If you are proposing a joint search with another academic unit in the FAS, only one unit needs to submit the request. If you are proposing a joint search with an academic unit in the School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS), the FAS unit should submit the request after consultation with Kristin Flower, Assistant Dean in the SEAS Dean's Office. Please do not submit such a request unless both units have agreed on the area and level for the proposed search.

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 2025-26 will be at the junior level. If your request is not at the junior level, please provide a detailed explanation of why the request is at a different rank in your strategic overview document.

Building and room number(s): Include the building and room number(s) for proposed office and/or laboratory space.

Prioritization: If your academic unit is requesting more than one new search for 2025-26, please rank each search. Leaving them unranked defers judgment of your unit's priorities to the FRC.

Strategic overview (one pdf file per search request)

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, and commitment to a broad and diverse range of excellent scholars and teachers? 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:

Diverse field of excellent candidates: Is a search in this area likely to produce a diverse field of excellent candidates? If not, how might the area of search be broadened to allow consideration of candidates of the highest caliber with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences?

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 postdoctoral associates and junior faculty? How does this fit into your unit's long-term teaching plans? Please include data or other information about why additional ladder faculty are needed for teaching in the area of your search. What current gaps in your curriculum would the candidate fill? Would they offer instruction in an under-represented area, and thus advance the preservation and dissemination of knowledge in that field? The data should include, wherever possible, recent enrollments and specializations of undergraduate and graduate students that align with your requested search area.

Space: In what office/laboratory space do you propose to house the candidate? Give specific building and room numbers. Space may be the limiting factor in some search authorizations.

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.)?

Joint search plan: If you intend to run this search in coordination with another unit, please outline the role that each unit will play in the search process and indicate the unit(s) in which the hire may receive appointments. If you expect to use a slot other than your unit's D slot or an FAS P slot, please provide documentation of an agreement with the slot holding unit.

We look forward to receiving your ladder faculty search requests by March 28.

Yours,

Steven

Steven Wilkinson
Dean
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Yale University

Faculty Resource Committee (FRC)

Voting faculty members

Steven Wilkinson | Committee Chair; Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies; Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; 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

Emily Erikson | Chair, Department of Sociology; Professor of Sociology and Professor of Management; FAS

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

Tina Lu | Colonel John Trumbull Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures; FAS

Fatima Naqvi | Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Film and Media Studies; FAS

Gerard Padro | Samuel C. Park Jr. (BA 1925) Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science; FAS

Marc Robinson | Chair, Humanities Advisory Committee; FAS Dean of Humanities; Malcolm G. Chace ’56 Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, of English, of American Studies; Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama; FAS

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

Non-voting advisory staff

Alexandra Apolloni | FAS Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Outreach

John Mangan | FAS Dean of Faculty Affairs; Senior Associate Dean

Taylor Mascari | Senior Administrative Assistant, FAS Dean’s Office

Dorottya Noble | FAS Assistant Dean

Pamela Schirmeister | Deputy Dean of Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Jason Zentz | FAS Senior Associate Dean