Assistant Professor of College Success

Current Pierce College Tenured and Permanent Status Faculty Priority Deadline is 1 week before the posted closing date. For more details, please see: 2 vacancies: 1 at the Fort Steilacoom Campus and 1 at the Puyallup Campus.

Pierce College District is student-centered and mission-driven to ensure that all our students thrive and reach their fullest potential. As an institution committed to antiracism, we are action-oriented and intentional in dismantling every systemic barrier that prevents Black and Brown student excellence and liberation.

The Pierce College Success Department, within the Transitional Education division, is a dynamic group of full-time and part-time faculty who serve a diverse student population. College Success classes orient students to the behaviors, expectations, and rewards of college as well as academic support services within a supportive inclusive classroom environment. The program seeks candidates with a strong commitment to supporting diverse students as they transition to college and navigate systems of higher education.

Candidates bring engaging facilitation skills, passion and care for students, and the ability to collaborate across campus to support student excellence. The department is committed to teaching that promotes belonging, affirms student identities, and creates opportunities for student excellence at an anti-racist institution. College Success instructors are a crucial first point of contact for students. A common curriculum is used in College Success and instructors are provided all content and assignments to ensure a common student experience.

In addition to course outcomes, faculty teach and assess the College Core Abilities Outcomes:
Critical, Creative and Reflective Thinking, Information Competency, Effective Communication, Global Citizenship, and Intercultural Engagement.

Pierce College is an innovative community college striving to re-envision our institution through an antiracist framework to advance equity in student engagement and learning. We value student learning experiences that foster inclusion and intercultural engagement in the classroom and that expand into our local and global communities. Faculty, staff, and administrators work collaboratively to lead initiatives that advance equitable student success: from closing areas of inequity to building guided career pathways.

The college serves over 15,000 students in basic skills, transfer, and professional technical programs. Through continuous efforts, we have improved retention rates by 17% and graduation rates by 89%. This year, Pierce was again named a top community college by several national organizations.

• Designing and teaching a variety of courses in the department, specifically College Success courses, in a manner that promotes Black and Brown excellence;
• Creating race-conscious course assessments and evaluations, assessing data, and engaging in continuous improvement of courses based on that analysis in order to advance student achievement of outcomes, success in subsequent courses, and impact on retention, graduation, and successful transition to employment or further education;
• Continuously innovating inclusive pedagogy and active learning experiences (campus, online, hybrid) in response to assessment and evidence/data analysis;
• Provide District Leadership in curriculum, staffing and program development;
• Assist with District-wide professional development and trainings that integrate college success strategies across the disciplines;
• Demonstrating cultural humility and intercultural engagement, including an awareness and understanding of historically marginalized populations, and the creation of an educational environment that affirms the identities and communications of students of color;
• Incorporating appropriate and engaging technology across modalities;
• Creatively designing learning experiences that extend beyond delivering content and assist students in achieving course, program, and degree outcomes, including the college's five core abilities of Intercultural Engagement;
  Critical, Creative and Reflective Thinking;
  Information Competency;
  Global Citizenship; and Effective Communication;
• Contributing to a collaborative and innovative department, division, and institution;
• Leading efforts to increase student achievement in College Success, including closing areas of inequity, particularly with regard to race and ethnicity;
• Teaching, advising, and mentoring students holistically from recruitment to completion and transition to employment or further education;
• Engaging in shared governance including district-wide efforts to build an antiracist institution focused on action to advance access, retention, and success for our most marginalized and vulnerable students and employees;
• Actively engaging with cohort peers as part of the First-Year Faculty Cohort in the first year of the tenure process, which will…