Emory College of Arts and Sciences plans to hire about 80 new faculty members in the next two years, an increase from the 25 to 30 annual new hires in recent years, according to College Dean Michael A. Elliott.
Elliott attributed the planned increase to a higher rate of retiring faculty recently and the expansion of some existing departments, including economics, history and political science.
“There are some key areas where we know that the departments are not as large as we need them to be to fulfill both the undergraduate teaching mission and the research and graduate teaching mission,” Elliott said.
For the 2019-20 academic year, the Economics Department is seeking to fill five positions while the History and Political Science Departments are filling three positions each.
The College also plans to hire at least three scholars who specialize in Latino studies, as the Wheel previously reported.
“Increasing the diversity of our faculty and our curriculum … are priorities for us,” Elliott said.
While the majority of the newly hired faculty will begin working in Fall 2019, some will join in Spring 2020 and others in Fall 2020.
Associate Professor of History Daniel LaChance, who chairs the History Department’s search committee, said he is searching for faculty specializing in the study of race and ethnicity in U.S. history.
The History Department chose to search for scholars of race and ethnicity because of cultural relevance, recent faculty departures and student demand, LaChance said. He cited the list of 13 demands by the Black Students of Emory as one reason.
The hiring process for all departments typically begins at the end of the previous academic year, when the College approves individual requests to search for specific faculty, LaChance said. The search committee then searches for candidates, screens applications and invites some applicants to campus. While on campus, candidates meet with faculty and students and present their research. The entire department then votes on which candidates to hire after receiving suggestions from the committee.
The Political Science Department created two hiring committees: one searching for professors of international relations, chaired by Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Political Science Dan Reiter, and another searching for professors specializing in Latin countries, chaired by Associate Professor of Political Science Andra Gillespie, according to Department Chair Jeffrey Staton.
The committee searching for international relations scholars has already hired Emily Gade, an acting assistant professor from the University of Washington, and Jessica Sun, a doctoral candidate from the University of Michigan. Gade and Sun will begin teaching in Spring 2020 and Fall 2020, respectively.
The Economics Department formed three search committees which sought scholars of microeconomics, econometrics and health economics. Associate Professor of Economics Hugo Mialon chaired the microeconomics search committee and told the Wheel in a Feb. 14 email that the committee successfully hired Kyungmin (Teddy) Kim as an associate professor and In-Koo Cho as a chaired professor. Kim is currently an associate professor at the University of Miami, and Cho is currently a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Five of the current faculty searches received approval from the College in the 2017-18 academic year but are still underway, including in the Chemistry, Human Health, Physics, Psychology and Theater Departments.
