Faculty Hiring Questions

Information for potential applicants for faculty searches in PBS

 

On this page:

Search Advocates

Diversity + Inclusion

Bloomington

Connections with Campus Centers + Programs

Tenure-Track Faculty

Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, + Teaching Professors

Visiting Assistant Professors (VAPs)

 

Search Advocates

Sometimes, job applicants and candidates have questions about a department’s culture and what it’s like to live and work at a particular institution/town given its demographic composition and other socio-cultural characteristics. People may want to ask questions like these in confidence, outside the context of the formal search committee. The following PBS faculty, who are not on the search committee, are happy to serve as such contacts (i.e., be search advocates). We encourage potential applicants and candidates to reach out to these faculty if they have such questions.

The list below is everyone who was identified and who agreed to the role of search advocate, despite that they may also be serving on one of our current search committees. We acknowledge that this could reflect a conflict of interest for that search advocate and applicants to the search to which they have been appointed.

Contact information for search advocates to ask questions about the hiring process, department, campus, and Bloomington:

 

Diversity + Inclusion

Indiana University President Pamela Whitten is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Shortly after her arrival in summer of 2021, she launched a 7-year, $30 million Presidential Diversity Hiring Initiative. The first two cohorts, numbering 97 Bloomington tenure-track faculty, has already used more than the initial $30 million allotment, the university is excited to continue the initiative. Annual reports on the state of diversity at Indiana University and its campuses may be found here.

As with the campus, the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) is committed to fostering a community of diverse faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff from across a wide range of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, ability status, socioeconomic status, immigration status, and other forms of difference. PBS values diversity, equity, and inclusion as core strengths and essential elements of its mission.

  • However, looking at the faculty bios page, you notice that the faculty is predominantly white and predominantly white men. The tenure-track faculty consists of only 35% women and only 16% BIPOC. We have done better recruiting a diverse graduate student body, with 39% identify as BIPOC, 63% as women, and 15% from historically marginalized groups.
  • Diversity is critical to the success of our department—it provides us with a broader range of ideas, perspectives, and approaches to research. A diverse faculty helps us make better governance decisions, mentor and teach graduate and undergraduate students, and serve our community and state. If the diversity of the faculty does not reflect the diversity of the students, community, and country, our mission is unachievable.
  • Results from our annual departmental climate survey and a recent self-study of hiring outcomes have convinced the faculty that our search practices must include more evidence-based principles to broaden the applicant pool and limit bias in the selection process.
  • We have made some progress in the last 20 years using the traditional hiring methods; the number of women TT faculty has risen from 24% to 35% and the number of BIPOC TT faculty has risen from 0% to 16%. However, those small increases are disappointing and the current numbers do not reflect the department’s stated commitment to diversity and inclusion. Recognition of this incongruence by the faculty was an important motivator for adopting more evidence-based search principles.
  • Because we aren’t yet where we’d like to be with respect to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, now and going forward, we will work harder to recruit and retain more faculty and graduate students who are women and from minoritized groups, as well as people who engage in research relating to diversity. See our page on recent actions for some promising examples of changes to department policy and practice. We are committed to making the Psychological and Brain Sciences department a diverse and inclusive place, where all faculty, fellows, staff, and students feel that they belong and can thrive and succeed.

 

Bloomington

  • Close to three metropolitan centers: one hour to Indianapolis (55 minutes to IND international airport); 1.75 hours to Louisville, KY; and 2.5 hours to Cincinnati, OH
  • High salary relative to cost of living
  • High quality of life
  • IU has a flexible remote work policy
  • Family friendly
  • Bloomington Public Transit is free for faculty
  • IU is the home to a world-renowned school of music and theatre departments, hosting over a thousand performances each year. In addition, you'll find some of the best shows from Broadway each year at the IU Auditorium.
  • IU is part of Big Ten athletics. Our swimming and diving squads are perennially among the nation’s best. The Women's basketball team advanced to their first Elite Eight showing during the 2021 NCAA tournament, and currently ranked 4th in the nation this year. In 2022, for the 16th time in program history the Men's soccer team made it to NCAA championship game. The men’s baseball team won the Big Ten Championship in 2019. The Spirit of Indiana: 24 Sports, One Team.

 

Connections with campus centers + programs

Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES) 

Equity Accelerator

STEM Inclusive Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (SIPFP)

Cognitive Science

Program in Neuroscience

Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (ICTSI)

Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL)

Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET)

 

Tenure-Track Faculty

Research
  • The startup package for new assistant professors includes research funds that are highly competitive with our peer institutions.
  • The startup package includes costs of renovating laboratory space as necessary.
  • Time for research is prioritized for early-level faculty by limiting committee and other service work in their pre-tenure years.
  • The department is very supportive of early-level faculty and is very collaborative overall.
  • IU provides considerable funding to the department for graduate students (i.e., only about half of our students are funded through awards, grants, etc.). These institutional funds are given through student academic appointments (SAA; almost all are teaching assistantships). Our practice is to share these appointments equitably, which means that new assistant professors can recruit graduate students to their labs with relatively attractive stipends before acquiring funding sources of their own to provide stipends for students.
  • In addition to the NIMH-funded T32 clinical translational science research training grant, clinical students can also be supported by NIDA T32 and NICHD T32 training grants if their research is of sufficient match.
  • IU has two “core” campuses, IU Bloomington (IUB), which is the oldest and largest, and IU Indianapolis (IUI), which is in Indianapolis next to the IU School of Medicine (IUSoM). Collaborations between IUB, IUI, and IUSoM are encouraged and our department actively engages in these collaborations.
Teaching
  • For tenure-track faculty, teaching load is no more than three (3 credit) courses per year – 2 courses one semester and 1 course the other semester.
  • Pre-tenure faculty are typically encouraged to teach one large undergraduate “service” course (80+ students), one small undergraduate course in your area of research expertise (<30 students), and a graduate course. Options are available to take over an existing course and/or develop a new course completely. Semester-long practicum supervision (e.g., in clinical science) to 5 or more students is credited as a graduate course.
  • Teaching the same course multiple semesters and multiple years is encouraged to minimize time spent on preparation and to measure a trajectory of improved teaching.
  • The startup package for new assistant professors typically includes 3 pre-tenure course releases in line with aims to protect research time during this early stage.
Tenure + Promotion
  • Tenure criteria are relatively transparent and we are currently updating them to be even more transparent.
  • Every assistant and associate professor is assigned a three-person “advancement and promotion” (A&P) committee that mentors them from hiring to tenure and promotion to associate professor and subsequent promotion to full professor.
  • The A&P committee meets at least once per year to provide feedback about the faculty’s progress and trajectory toward tenure/promotion.
  • For the “third-year review”, the A&P committee provides even more thorough feedback.
  • The goal of the department is to hire faculty who will be successful in their scholarly responsibilities, enjoy their work, remain on our faculty, and become productive full professors.

 

Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, + Teaching Professors

Teaching
  • Teaching load is no more than five (3 credit) courses per academic year – 3 courses one semester and 2 courses the other semester. Summer teaching options are typically available with supplemental pay.
  • Teaching assignments consider faculty expertise and are distributed across larger introductory courses and smaller advanced courses according to curricular needs.
  • We encourage faculty to teach the same courses regularly to minimize time spent on new course preparation, optimally develop given courses, and be able to measure a trajectory of improved teaching.
  • Funds are provided to support instruction and advance faculty development (conferences, workshops, society memberships, etc.).
Service
  • Lecturer-stream faculty serve on departmental, college- and university-level committees, which provide important networking opportunities and wider perspectives on the workings of the university
  • Lecturer-stream faculty attend faculty meetings and participate in departmental governance.
Promotion
  • Promotion criteria are relatively transparent and we are currently updating them to be even more transparent.
  • Every lecturer-stream faculty member is assigned a three-person “advancement and promotion” (A&P) committee that mentors them from hiring to through subsequent promotions to Senior Lecturer and Teaching Professor.
  • The A&P committee meets at least once per year to provide feedback about the faculty’s progress and trajectory toward promotion and reappointment.
  • The goal of the department is to hire faculty who will excel in the classroom, enjoy their work, be successful in their scholarly responsibilities, and become productive teaching faculty.
Research
  • While lecturer-stream faculty members’ promotions are based strictly on teaching and service, pedagogy-related research is encouraged and supported through department and university resources (e.g., direct faculty allocations and grants).

 

Visiting Assistant Professors (VAPs)

Teaching
  • Teaching load is no more than five (3 credit) courses per academic year – 3 courses one semester and 2 courses the other semester. Summer teaching options are typically available with supplemental pay.
  • Teaching assignments consider faculty expertise and are distributed across larger introductory courses and smaller advanced courses according to curricular needs.
  • We encourage faculty to teach the same courses regularly to minimize time spent on new course preparation, optimally develop given courses, and be able to measure a trajectory of improved teaching.
  • Funds are provided to support instruction and advance faculty development (conferences, workshops, society memberships, etc.).
Research
  • VAP faculty are encouraged to integrate with research faculty and their labs in order to promote professional development and continue their research interests as their schedules allow.
Contract
  • VAPs are appointed to an initial 1-year contract that is renewable for one additional year, based on satisfactory teaching performance.