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Dean, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
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Position Number: 3884717
Location: Boston, MA
Position Type: Deans - Education

Dean, College of Social Sciences & Humanities

About the Opportunity

Northeastern University seeks a leader of vision, accomplishment, intellectual breadth, and entrepreneurial capacity to serve as the new Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH).

With its 17 schools, departments, and programs, CSSH has become the home of Experiential Liberal Arts at Northeastern, redefining liberal-arts education for the next generation of global thinkers by combining the university's signature focus on experiential learning with the rigorous study of society, culture, politics, and ethics at a rapidly growing international scale.

Reporting to the Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Dean will play a leadership role in expanding the College's presence and engagement across Northeastern's global network of campuses. The Dean will advance the distinctiveness, reputation, and impact of the College and the university and will be responsible for:

Guiding the College's academic direction and integrity
Championing ongoing impact in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within and beyond the College
Overseeing the recruitment and development of faculty and staff employees and supporting them in their work
Continuing the College's innovation in curriculum, pedagogy, and programs
Generating resources to advance its mission
Directing its fiscal and operational activities

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

The College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) stewards Northeastern's work in the Experiential Liberal Arts. The College's mission is to contribute to the liberal education of all Northeastern students, undergraduate and graduate alike; to produce cutting-edge knowledge about and solutions to political and social problems of our contemporary world; to foster ethical reflection and critical thought; and to focus attention on the enduring significance of human history, society, and culture.

The College's 17 schools, departments, and programs - with disciplines ranging from Economics and History to English and International Affairs - house an interdisciplinary group of scholars with global perspectives and a culture of inclusion. By advancing the integration of liberal-arts disciplines and values with the constructive use of digital and computational tools, CSSH has become the home of experiential liberal arts. It is also a locus of Northeastern's mission in Humanics - the combination of technological, digital, and human literacies that will enable humans to thrive in a world being rapidly changed by artificial intelligence.

CSSH research teams of faculty, students, and staff examine a wide range of questions, using diverse methods and capitalizing on interdisciplinary and community partnerships. Their research addresses pressing problems of the day and traces the roots of these problems. The College's 15 research centers and institutes draw together faculty, students, staff, and external partners in fundamental and applied research in high-impact areas including sustainability, health, security, and artificial intelligence (AI). The focus on developing evidence-based analyses of and solutions to pressing real-world problems undergirds its nine PhD programs and its growing array of master's programs.

CSSH has grown its full-time faculty to 272, more than half of whom have been hired during the last decade, including 47 percent (68 of 145) of the tenured and tenure-track faculty. Thirty-seven percent (54) of the tenure-line faculty are jointly appointed with other colleges. Championing community- and policy-engaged research, CSSH has increased its annual research funding to over $10M and has added seven new research centers ranging from the NULab for Texts, Maps and Networks (with the Khoury College of Computer Sciences), to the Public Evaluation Lab (with the Bouve College of Health Sciences), to the Center on Crime, Race, and Justice. CSSH faculty are leading one of the university's first two Impact Accelerators and are involved in one of the first funded Impact Engines. CSSH has grown the number of distinct combined major programs to 113, over half of in partnership with other colleges. In addition, the College has introduced two new majors, eight new master's programs, and 11 new certificate programs, several in collaboration with other colleges. New graduate programs include Urban Informatics, Digital Humanities, Security and Resilience Studies, Environmental Science and Policy, and Data Analytics. CSSH's Fall 2022 undergraduate enrollment is 2,031 and its graduate (Masters and PhD) enrollment totals 752.

In 2016, CSSH became the first of Northeastern's colleges to establish a strategic plan to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in its mission, programs, and community. Other noteworthy developments over the last decade include fostering research and curricular collaborations across Northeastern's global campus network, from the first experiential doctoral placement in London to serve the Mapping Black London Digital Humanities project; to the Data, Ethics, and Culture semester in London; to executive education on resilience and sustainability in Seattle.

CSSH is home to many faculty, staff and students engaged in high-impact research and initiatives for social change. These efforts aim to create and disseminate knowledge that advances social justice, promotes well-being, and protects environmental integrity by working closely with communities to impact and improve institutions, policies, and practices. These teams are often highly interdisciplinary, tackling complex problems and challenges through engagement with community partners and the co-creation of knowledge. CSSH prioritizes the inclusion of students at all levels in these research teams.

Succeeding Professor Uta Poiger, who is stepping down after a decade of remarkable success leading CSSH, the new Dean has the opportunity to make a lasting impact on both a wide array of fields and on the students who engage them, redefining the value proposition of a liberal-arts education for the next generation of global thinkers.

The Dean

The next Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities will take over the leadership of distinctive and dynamic academic enterprise and will guide CSSH to new levels of excellence and prominence that mirror the unique momentum of Northeastern University. Capitalizing on what has been a historic decade for the university, the Dean will bring intellectual accomplishment and strategic leadership ability; excellent interpersonal, relationship, and communication skills; entrepreneurial ambition; empathy and emotional intelligence; collaborative and creative energy; and a passion for furthering the College's mission, which is to educate "global citizens [who are] creating and curating knowledge and shaping solutions to the world's most pressing problems."

CSSH's new Dean will position the social sciences and humanities for the era of big data and the accelerating, ever-expanding impact of artificial intelligence on academic fields, careers, and societies. In this signal effort, the Dean has a remarkable opportunity to realize the value of social sciences and humanities disciplines at an institution known for its investment in technology and science. Led by its new dean and leveraging the full resources of the university, CSSH at Northeastern can comprehend our world's future state broadly, deeply, and transformatively.

In the fields and intersections of fields that CSSH occasions and that Northeastern's integrative approach to curriculum enables, not to mention the broader, paradigm-changing implications of Humanics that informs development of curriculum and research themes across Northeastern, the Dean will lead CSSH in exciting new directions - directions that are aligned with Northeastern's academic plan and directions that are faithful to the heritage of the many disciplines housed within it.

Reporting directly to the Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Dean will provide academic, intellectual, and administrative leadership to the College. The next Dean will draw upon a deep understanding of a liberal-arts education to engage and work with key stakeholders in an ongoing effort to enhance an already thriving school and further enhance its status as an international leader expanding our understanding of the world.

The Dean of CSSH will embrace a core set of responsibilities and expectations; these include:

Aligning the College's goals, research, faculty hiring, and programming to support the university's Academic Plan
Championing the College's role in the education, research, and service missions of the university and advocating for the resources and recognition that are commensurate with that role
Working with the College's leadership and other academic deans to enhance existing academic programs, introduce innovative, scalable, and cross-cutting new programs, and develop processes for review of existing programs
Advancing the College's and the university's efforts in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through faculty and staff hiring, curricular offerings, collaborations with other academic deans, and programs that further build an inclusive culture within CSSH, as well as through collaborative community-based partnerships and programs
Balancing the role the College plays in Northeastern's drive to innovate and its headline initiatives with attention to effective academic and administrative operations, faculty recruitment and development, and student support
Expanding the College's presence in Northeastern's Global University System, within which Mills College at Northeastern, with its Mills Institute, and Northeastern University London present immediate and compelling opportunities
Strengthening the College's role as the center of and convener for the social-science and humanities disciplines at the university and leveraging that role to promote and integrate social sciences and humanities across the university - for example by fostering further growth in innovative combined-major degree programs that bridge Northeastern's other schools and colleges
Increasing the research and scholarship activity with the College including in its established, highly regarded community-engaged research programs
Continuing the development of the Dean's office to provide efficient support for the College's departments and schools and its faculty, student, and unit-level staff
Supporting the development of CSSH's department chairs and school directors to provide sustained, empathetic, visionary leadership
Aligning the structure and resources of the College to meet current and future student, program, and research demands

Embracing the rapidly evolving opportunity-set that Northeastern creates and contributing to its uniquely entrepreneurial culture, the Dean will in all endeavors provide responsible, ethical, empathetic, and empowering leadership to this diverse and dynamic academic community.

Qualifications

The university seeks a Dean who possesses unquestioned integrity and exemplary interpersonal and communication skills, a leader with the ability to inspire align constituents and to leverage the College's and the university's strengths. A committed teacher-scholar who values and supports faculty development and appreciates the full range of methods of inquiry, forms of research, and approaches to pedagogy represented in the College, the Dean will be a tireless and resourceful champion for the College and for the humanities and social sciences at and beyond Northeastern.

The ideal candidate will be a passionate advocate for the virtues of a liberal-arts education in the twenty-first century who can imagine their reinvention in the dynamic, trans-disciplinary, entrepreneurial, and globalizing environment of a university committed to innovation and impact. They will be deeply supportive of faculty research and creativity and will promote collaboration across boundaries. This candidate will understand how to position CSSH at the center of Northeastern's mission - to solve the world's hardest problems and to prepare students for lives of accomplishment.

Candidates must possess a demonstrated commitment to initiatives that advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and must show strong evidence of visionary leadership, innovative and entrepreneurial action, administrative and fundraising acumen, and the ability to foster an environment of growth, intellectual development for students, faculty, and staff, collegiality, and respect. Candidates should demonstrate the ability to work effectively within Northeastern's shared-governance practices on the basis of a management style that builds confidence, promotes teamwork, enhances creativity and collaboration, and builds consensus.

Qualified candidates will have an earned doctorate or equivalent terminal degree in their academic field and a distinguished record of accomplishment as a scholar and educator appropriate for appointment as a tenured full Professor at Northeastern University in one of the academic departments or schools of the College.

Appointment Terms

The Dean serves at the pleasure of the Provost for a renewable five-year term. As Dean, they will be in a 12-month, 100% administrative role. Under normal circumstances, the Dean will be a tenured full professor in a department or school within CSSH (with possible secondary and/or courtesy appointments elsewhere at Northeastern) and will move into a regular 9-month faculty position at the end of their service as Dean.

Northeastern University

Founded in 1898, Northeastern University is the recognized leader in worldwide experiential learning and interdisciplinary research, focused on global challenges in health, security, and sustainability. Over the past two decades, Northeastern has evolved into a global research university. It has seen noteworthy growth in partnerships with business, government, and nonprofits in recent years, advancing both its research enterprise and experiential learning opportunities for students at every level of study.

The pace of change and progress has accelerated significantly since 2006 under the leadership of President Joseph E. Aoun. Northeastern's research profile and external funding levels have risen sharply over the last 16 years; the university received $231 million in external research awards in 2021-22, up 374% since 2006. In 2015 the university moved into the top tier for research activity when it achieved R1 status within the Carnegie Classification system. Its research enterprise is solutions-oriented and spans the world. Its faculty scholars work in teams that cross not just disciplines, but also sectors-aligned around today's highly interconnected global challenges and focused on transformative impact for humankind.

Northeastern was ranked 44 among national universities in U.S. News and World Report (2022-2023 edition), a remarkable increase of 71 places in just 17 years and the 10th year in a row that the university was ranked in the top 50. At the end of FY 2022, the university's endowment was $1.54 billion.

Northeastern's momentum is in large measure attributable to its increasingly accomplished faculty. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the university's leadership made the strategic decision to increase hiring while other research universities entered a period of retrenchment. In the last decade and a half, the university has increased the size of its tenured and tenure-track faculty by nearly 44 percent. As a measure of the growth in Northeastern's research activity, between 2013 and 2022, 70 members of its faculty earned NSF CAREER Awards. The university has also been nimble and creative in building out a core of engaged, invested, and well-supported teaching faculty whose contributions have allowed it to increase enrollment and has given research-active faculty greater opportunities to thrive. Northeastern employs nearly 900 tenure-line faculty and just over 1000 highly specialized teaching, research, clinical, and co-op faculty; 45% of full-time faculty are women, and nearly 14% are from groups historically underrepresented in university faculty (not counting international faculty). Reflecting its growth, Northeastern's full-time faculty has grown by over 1000 since 2006. In 2021, it announced the intention to hire 500 research-engaged faculty members over the next five years.

Northeastern offers more than 325 undergraduate majors and concentrations, and more than 400 graduate programs ranging from doctoral programs to graduate certificates, in nine colleges. Additionally, it offers advanced degrees at through its expanding network of campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina; London; San Francisco; San Jose, California; Seattle; Toronto; Vancouver; and Portland, Maine.

In 2022, Northeastern completed the merger of Oakland, California-based Mills College into the university, establishing it as Mills College at Northeastern and positioning it as the university's 10th college. A centerpiece of Mills College at Northeastern is the Mills Institute, which will bring faculty, staff, students, and visitors together in programs that advance women's leadership and champion gender equity and racial justice.

At Northeastern, learning emphasizes the intersection of data, technology, and human literacies, uniquely preparing graduates for careers of the future and lives of fulfillment and accomplishment. The university's distinctive, internationally recognized programs for Experiential Learning attract an increasingly diverse and academically talented pool of students. Its signature cooperative education program enables its undergraduate and graduate students to work for employers in 37 states and 149 countries, giving students real-world experience that adds enriching new dimensions to their classroom studies. Approximately 50% of students who complete a Co-op receive an employment offer from their Co-op sponsor. Over the past five years, 97 percent of Northeastern alumni were employed full time or in graduate school within nine months of graduation, and 91 percent of employed 2021 graduates were doing work related to their major.

Northeastern's reputation for innovation, centered in its experiential-learning model, and its high levels of alumni professional success have propelled remarkable growth in both undergraduate applications, which in the 2021 admissions cycle rose to 91,000 for spots in the Fall 2022 entering class, up 20% from the previous year. The acceptance rate for undergraduates is now 7%. Northeastern currently enrolls close to 26,000 undergraduate and over 22,000 graduate students, with approximately 13 of the total student body being from underrepresented minority groups and 38% being international students.

Experience Unleashed - Northeastern's New Academic Plan

In 2020, as the world changed dramatically, the Northeastern community came together to update its strategic plan, Northeastern 2025. The new vision of this strategic plan, Experience Unleashed, will continue to propel Northeastern's rise as the world's leading problem-solving university. As the preamble to Experience Unleashed states, Northeastern's overriding goal through its academic plan is to "maximize [its] positive impact in [its] communities and in the world."

The academic plan focuses the university around four pillars: building on the power of diversity; erasing boundaries; maximizing the power of experience; and creating new currents for discovery. Running through Experience Unleashed is Northeastern's abiding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, its drive towards innovation, and its belief in the value of experiential education.

Northeastern's ambitious plan will advance learning and research throughout its entire Global University System and will position it as the indispensable institution for learners and innovators who want to see their work make a direct impact on the world. With ongoing investments in its distinctive strengths, Northeastern aims to restore trust in higher education's capacity to solve the world's hardest problems and to prepare learners for lives of accomplishment.

Central elements of Experience Unleashed include Impact Engines and Impact Accelerators. These are ways, first, of organizing cross-disciplinary collaborations to understand real-world problems and, second, to bring potential solutions through prototyping and into application. The university has issued a call for proposals to all faculty and students for proposals that, after competitive review, will receive funding and institutional support to advance them. To advance the new academic plan, Northeastern also announced an ambitious set of cluster hires in 13 areas: cognitive and brain health; health, technology, and data; education innovation; food, water, and energy; sustainability; mental health; disease strategies; biological systems and solutions; modeling; AI (artificial intelligence) and social justice; technology and digital economies; extraordinary HCI (human computer interaction); and network science.

While it will take an entire university to realize the goals of Experience Unleashed - with its call for seamless collaboration across colleges, institutes, campuses, and partners - the next Dean of CSSH will position the College to play a central role in this reimagined university and beyond.

Application Instructions

Northeastern University has engaged Opus Partners to assist this search. Craig Smith, Partner, and Abigail Maynard, Associate, are leading the search. To seek additional information, nominate qualified candidates, or to apply, please email Abigail Maynard: Abigail.maynard@opuspartners.net.

An application should include a CV and cover letter. Letters should highlight relevant experience, explain interest and motivation, and describe an initial vision for leading the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Northeastern University values diversity, equity, and inclusion and will seek a leader who is committed to promoting these values in leading CSSH. We encourage candidates to describe initiatives and accomplishments they have led or participated in that have lowered barriers to and increased participation by historically under-represented groups and to address how they might advance diversity, equity, and inclusion as the Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Northeastern University is an equal opportunity employer, seeking to recruit and support a broadly diverse community of faculty and staff. Northeastern values and celebrates diversity in all its forms and strives to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds cohesion.

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

To learn more about Northeastern University's commitment and support of diversity and inclusion, please see www.northeastern.edu/diversity.

Position Type

Leadership

Additional Information

Northeastern University considers factors such as candidate work experience, education and skills when extending an offer.

Northeastern has a comprehensive benefits package for benefit eligible employees. This includes medical, vision, dental, paid time off, tuition assistance, wellness & life, retirement- as well as commuting & transportation. Visit www.northeastern.edu/benefits for more information.

Northeastern University is an equal opportunity employer, seeking to recruit and support a broadly diverse community of faculty and staff. Northeastern values and celebrates diversity in all its forms and strives to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds cohesion.

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

To learn more about Northeastern University's commitment and support of diversity and inclusion, please see www.northeastern.edu/diversity.

To apply, visit https://northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/careers/job/Boston-MA-Main-Campus/Dean--College-of-Social-Sciences---Humanities_R111696