UWindsor president Alan Wildeman today announced the first wave of a three-year faculty hiring initiative that will see up to 50 new faculty positions established at the University.

“The principles in allocating them were simple,” says Dr. Wildeman. “The new positions must support our Strategic Mandate Agreement, and they must pursue the highest quality people who are scholars and who are committed to teaching in a diverse and internationalized campus.”

Eighteen tenure-track assistant professor positions across six faculties have been approved in the first round of hiring, through a consultative process led by provost Douglas Kneale, with the deans of the faculties and their respective programs.

“Investing in faculty in this way is also investing in our students. We are looking for outstanding teachers, researchers, scholars, creators, and practitioners with a diverse range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary engagement,” says Dr. Kneale.

“From face-to-face lecture hall to mobile device, from lab to clinic to performance, I want people who are making a noise in their fields, who value innovative and effective teaching and learning, who will be successful in mentoring our undergraduate and graduate students, and whose work will attract external funding to support their programs of research and creativity.”

Kneale says the hiring of 50 new professors is both a hugely transformative moment for the University and an investment in the future of the entire community.

The hiring initiative, first announced by the president in a March 2015 public address, was conceived as a response to a changing provincial mandate—one in which student outcomes and learning contexts will play a greater role in funding models.

Funded through the Strategic Priority Fund that was established in 2009, the new hiring reflects the University’s ongoing commitment to vibrant, engaged learning environments for UWindsor students, and to ensuring that from their first year, students learn from instructors whose diverse backgrounds, applied expertise, and lived experience bring depth and currency to student learning.

At UWindsor, 76 percent of course sections are taught by regular full-time faculty member—an institutional strength that will be maintained and enhanced by this new hiring initiative.

In the following six months, departments will follow their normal appointment processes to recruit, evaluate, and select candidates for the new positions. Preparations for the arrival of the new cohort of early career faculty are underway and include the launch of a webpage for prospective candidates to review job descriptions and learn more about the University and its broader initiative: http://www.uwindsor.ca/50newprofs/.