FA27-024: Director of IRIS Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences

About the role

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) invites applications for a tenure-track faculty member to serve as the Director of the IRIS Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. The Director will oversee the Center’s operations and support its growth and development through building and extending campus and community partnerships, writing grants, and leading project development with faculty and students. The successful candidate, with a demonstrated background in digital humanities and social sciences scholarship, will hold a joint appointment in an appropriate academic department in the College of Arts and Sciences and will teach courses central to the Center’s curricular mission.

About the IRIS Center

Since its founding in 2010, the IRIS Center has grown into one of SIUE’s most distinctive academic centers. The Center has secured more than $5 million in grants from state, federal, and private sources and is a primary technical and pedagogical partner for the Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) program, an award-winning initiative integrating community-engaged curriculum and digital storytelling that supports first-generation, Pell-eligible, and historically underrepresented students. The Center administers an interdisciplinary Digital Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS) Minor and partners with the Black Literary Network, a project supported by a $1.5 million Mellon Foundation grant. The successful candidate will lead IRIS during an exciting period of growth as the University advances the Center to full Center status, providing an opportunity to shape its future vision, expand interdisciplinary collaborations, and build on its record of external funding and public impact.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic vision, day-to-day operational management, and budget administration for the IRIS Center.
• Lead staff and coordinate Center activities, ensuring adequate coverage across research, pedagogy, and outreach functions.
• Collaborate with other university Centers, academic, and administrative units to foster and support faculty and student DH research and pedagogy and cultivate regional partnerships that extend the Center’s impact beyond campus.
• Serve as Technical Director for the CODES program, developing curricula, tutorials, and digital learning resources and planning and managing the CODES ePortfolio platform and the program’s publishing platform, Emplace.
• Teach HUM 230: Introduction to Digital Humanities and HUM 490: Digital Creation and Storytelling.
• Write, submit, and manage grant applications from state, federal, and private sources to sustain and grow Center programming.

Qualifications

• PhD in a humanities or social sciences discipline.
• Demonstrated expertise in digital humanities tools, methods, and scholarly practice.
• Evidence of, or clear potential for successful grant writing and procuring external funding via grants and contracts.
• Experience or demonstrated capacity in project management and budget administration.
• Commitment to mentoring and supporting undergraduate and graduate students, including those from historically underrepresented populations.
• Strong cross-disciplinary and community outreach experience or potential.

Preferred Qualifications

• Record of interdisciplinary collaboration spanning humanities and social sciences.
• Experience directing or co-directing an academic center, lab, or comparable unit.
• Experience with the public humanities, community-engaged scholarship, or related fields.
• Demonstrated commitment to inclusive pedagogy and student success initiatives.