Continuing Education Instructor, Children’s Book: Portfolio and Professional Practice

About the Role

RISD Continuing Education functions within the larger context of RISD, an institution with an unparalleled reputation for producing highly-skilled, successful, and internationally renowned creative practitioners. With more than 100 years of expertise nurturing critical making, thinking, and innovation in art and design, we facilitate personal and professional development by engaging students in sustained exploration and learning in the creative disciplines.

RISD Continuing Education instructors plan, organize, teach, and provide feedback to promote and direct student learning in keeping with the institutional learning-centered values and in a manner that meets essential competencies of artists and designers. Instructors respond to students in a timely manner and communicate with the discipline and division via college-provided tools and resources. We welcome instructors whose teaching experience addresses historically underrepresented communities.

Responsibilities

• Teach asynchronous online courses to a diverse group of students from a range of disciplines through online content development, including recorded video demonstrations and/or lectures provided weekly for the course duration.
• Develop culturally diverse syllabi for studio and seminar courses.
• Provide weekly feedback to student work that models constructive criticism to encourage students to grow creatively and intellectually.
• Teach topics in children’s book illustration and professional-based topics in the field, including:
  • Writing book proposals and understanding submission guidelines.
  • How to seek representation.
  • What makes a well-rounded portfolio.
  • Working with an editor on a book project.
  • A variety of publishing approaches, such as self-publishing and traditional publishing.
• Teach students how to create and further develop content in an illustration portfolio, edit the body of work, and present it to the picture book publishing industry.
• Teach skills to scan traditional work and digitally optimize work for online portfolios, marketing, and submissions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree required.
• A track record of professional experience at companies successfully doing related work, and/or a robust, creative, intellectually and critically engaged design or studio practice, as evidenced by recognition in publications, commissions, exhibitions, awards, and/or collaborative projects.
• Teaching experience, including the ability to create syllabi and lesson plans, and how to tie those to learning outcomes.
• Ability to accept and act upon constructive feedback from course evaluations by students and staff.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills.
• Ability to meet RISD’s technology requirements.
• Experience leading classes and critiques that model inclusivity in an environment of diverse learners.
• Ability to tailor instruction to meet the needs of students with a wide range of pre-existing skills.
• In-depth knowledge of Children’s Book Illustration and Publishing.

Preferred Qualifications

• Teaching experience in a collegiate or adult education setting that addresses underrepresented communities.
• Online teaching experience, or experience utilizing an LMS.
• MFA preferred or equivalent in established professional practice in area of study.
• Lifelong learning orientation with demonstrated interest in learning about new developments in their area of study.
• Ability to empathically relate to a wide range of student perspectives and maturely handle interpersonal issues that may arise.
• Experience in course content development, including video creation of demonstrations and lectures.

Schedule

Winter 2027 semester: January 11, 2027 – February 21, 2027.

Work modality: Remote, Asynchronous.