Professor in Fine Art

The Academy of Fine Arts belongs to the Faculty of Humanities and Art and is located on the Arts Campus. It is a dynamic and international environment with 75 students, about 10 employees and a large number of guest teachers. The Academy of Fine Arts has a 3-year bachelor’s program (BFA) and a 2-year master’s program (MFA), both of which are divided into various courses. International contacts and exchanges are an important part of the education. Each summer one or two summer courses are offered. Artistic research has been conducted at the department for more than a decade and is an important area of ​​development. 

For more information, please visit the Academy of Fine Arts website.

Description and Duties
The duties include teaching at the basic and advanced levels, artistic research, internal and external collaboration and administrative work. Tasks involve initiating research and creating external contacts, as well as contributing to the development of the university, the institution and the subject. Teaching and supervision take place at the basic and advanced levels. The tasks can vary over time and their distribution is based on current conditions and needs as well as the applicable regulations. 

Eligibility
Eligibility to be hired as a professor of fine art is dependent on both artistic and educational skills (Chapter 4, Section 3 of the Higher Education Ordinance).

Good language skills in English, as well as the ability to teach in the language are requirements for the position. Anyone who is offered the job and who is not proficient in Swedish at the time of employment should be able to take on tasks that require the ability to communicate in Swedish within two years.

Assessment Criteria
The assessment is mainly related to skill, in the second place to merit (Under the Parliamentary Act of Higher Education, Chapter 12 § 5, and see also Appointment Procedure for Teachers at Umeå University).

The artistic skill must have been demonstrated through the candidate’s own artistic production or activities and development in relevant artistic fields.

The criteria for the assessment are: artistic depth and expressive power, artistic originality, visibility and value in art practice and professional contexts, productivity, artistic research and development work, awards and scholarships, and outward collaborations in society at large.

Artistic skill refers to documented expression, depth and originality in artistic activity through productivity, visibility and value in artistic practice and professional contexts. In addition, artistic skill refers to independent artistic research and development work, awards and scholarships, collaboration within the broader community and other qualifications in the field. A research degree with an artistic basis is a merit. 

Pedagogical skill must be demonstrated through documented experience of teaching on an artistic basis within a university. Criteria for the assessment are: ability to plan, implement and evaluate teaching as well as ability to guide and examine students at all educational levels, ability to vary teaching methods and forms of examination in relation to expected study results and the nature of the subject, experience with collaboration in the broader community and experience in education, participation in the development of learning environments, teaching materials, a reflective approach to student learning and their own teaching role. 

Pedagogical skill is recognized here as an ability to continuously review and structure the subject’s practice and development, to convey practical and theoretical knowledge, commitment and interest in the subject, and to activate student learning. This requires solid subject knowledge as well as an ability to systematically renew and develop one’s own competencies. This also requires knowledge of students’ learning, an ability to plan, teach, examine and evaluate higher education as well as an ability to support the learning of different individuals and groups. Furthermore, it requires an ability to utilize, analyze and communicate their own and others’ experiences and practices. Pedagogical competence also refers to the ability to adopt a reflective approach to one’s own teaching role, as well as knowledge of society’s goals and regulations for higher education.

The pedagogical skill level should have been acquired in education at the undergraduate and advanced levels.

The required competence can be obtained through participation in higher education pedagogical training, in other education of relevance to teaching within the university and / or documented, and by proven experience of teaching in higher education.

Other assessment criteria´s include skill in developing the subject area as well as skill in developing the subject’s collaboration with other subjects, good collaboration ability, administrative skill and other aptitude that are considered a prerequisite for the successful completion of the duties.

Weighting of assessment criteria
The requirements of the appointment, as well as institutional needs are the criteria for motivating the following important criteria of judgment:

Special emphasis should be given to the artistic and pedagogical skills. In comparing  these two evaluation criteria, equal emphasis will be given to the both of them”

With regard to other assessment criteria, great importance should be attached to skills in developing the subject area and in the ability to collaborate, and importance should be attached in the ability to collaborate across subjects and in the importance attached to developing cooperation, administrative skill and other aptitudes that are considered to be prerequisite for the proper execution of the relevant tasks.

Other
The employment is 50% and is limited to 5 years (Parliamentary Act of Higher Education Chapter 4, §§ 10). Based on the scope of the employment, 70% includes teaching and 30% research.

Place of employment is Umeå, Sweden and a high attendance at the department is a requirement.

Application
Information on which documents should be attached to the application is available at: Guidelines for application for employment and promotion at Umeå University´s Faculty of Arts. Please note that the writing at item 5 in the Guidelines is annulled and instead it is replaced for this position by the following writing:

“Upload a list of ten relevant artistic research projects or artistic development projects. The list should include short descriptions of each project as well as motivations to why the project is a research or development project and references to publications, exhibitions or similar.”

Requirements for eligibility and assessment can be found in the Appointment Procedure for Teachers at Umeå University.

Your application must be written in English and must be submitted via Umeå University’s recruitment system no later than January 7, 2020. 

Use the following link for more information about how to apply and to the recruitment system. We welcome your application!