OCAD University: Open Call for Black Applicants, Three (3) Tenure-Track Positions

In recognition of the U.N. Declaration of the International Decade for Peoples of African Descent, OCAD University invites applicants to three (3) tenure-track positions within all disciplines of the Faculty of Design as well as design-related Graduate Studies to address our 144 years of Black underrepresentation. This opportunity is open only to qualified individuals who self-identify as Black peoples of African Descent (including Africans and African heritage people from the Caribbean, North America and Latin America). This initiative is a special program under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

OCAD University (OCAD U), Canada’s university of the imagination, provides a vibrant and stimulating environment for its faculty and students. It is an exciting time to join the OCAD U community as the University is at a key stage in its institutional transformation with the implementation of its academic plan that articulates a commitment to decolonization, diversity, and equity.

The Faculty of Design is the largest of OCAD U’s three faculties. Under an ethos of Respectful Design, it boasts six undergraduate programs: Advertising, Environmental Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Industrial Design, and Material Art & Design (i.e. textiles and jewelry making). The design-related Graduate Programs include Inclusive Design, Design for Health, Strategic Foresight and Innovation, Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design; and Digital Futures.

The Faculty of Design seeks qualified Black candidates who can demonstrate how their lived experiences inform a deep commitment through their work to intersectional Black communities and whose theoretical, technical, and making/design expertise fulfills one or more of the current areas of need within the Faculty:

• Black speculative futures in dialogue with emerging technologies and the inclusive interaction design of digital products and/or objects, services, systems, or spaces;
• Multisensory storytelling that uses strategic and participatory design methodologies to co-create, with communities, innovative representations of Black lives; and/or
• Black Hip Hop or other Black cultural aesthetics and critical making in contemporary design for business and social justice.

The three (3) opportunities are to commence August 1, 2020 and are subject to budgetary approval.