Description

Teaching Assistant Professor in Architectural Studies

The Department of History of Art and Architecture (HAA) at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for a full-time Teaching Assistant Professor in Architectural Studies starting August 15, 2026, pending budgetary approval. This position, which is outside the tenure stream, is a full-time faculty appointment, with a clear pathway to presumptive renewal that is outlined in the Union of Pitt Faculty's collective bargaining agreement (see article 17). We seek a colleague whose teaching, mentorship, and service will further HAA's mission of enhancing and diversifying the histories of art and architecture through their teaching and mentorship.

The Teaching Assistant Professor (TAP) will teach three courses per semester at the undergraduate level at our Pittsburgh campus. Among those will be four core courses in architectural history and theory that are requirements for students pursuing the B.A. in Architectural Studies and B.S. in Architecture degrees: Approaches to the Built Environment, the gateway seminar for the Architectural Studies Program; the two-course survey of global architectural history consisting of Global Architecture 1: premodern and Global Architecture 2: modern, and the upper-level writing-intensive seminar Architecture: Image, Text, Theory. The successful candidate will also have opportunities to teach and develop new courses in their subfield(s).

This position is open to scholars with expertise in all subfields of and methodological approaches to the history of architecture and the built environment. Preference will be given to candidates with university-level teaching experience, and whose teaching and research would enhance and extend our curricular offerings in architectural history. We particularly welcome candidates whose work and teaching engage with the structural inequalities that art and architectural history have perpetuated and we invite them to describe how their pedagogical approach addresses those concerns.

About HAA

The Department of History of Art and Architecture is based in the Frick Fine Arts Building on the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland campus, which occupies the ancestral territory of the Adena culture, Hopewell culture, and Monagahela peoples, who were later joined by refugees of Delaware, Shawnee, Haudenosaunee, and other tribes, driven here from their homelands by colonizers. Our mission is to expand our field to provide a range of views. 24 full-time faculty members work together to serve the needs of our approximately 30 PhD students; post-baccalaureate Hot Metal Bridge fellows; over 300 majors and minors in our undergraduate programs in Architectural Studies, the History of Art and Architecture, and Museum Studies; and the hundreds of undergraduate students who enroll in our courses to fulfill General Education requirements. The University Art Gallery, Visual Media Workshop, and Fine Arts Library, all of which are housed within the Frick Fine Arts Building, function as situated learning environments for department members.

HAA recently received a large grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which aims to reshape the discipline of art and architectural history through new research that foregrounds reparative methodologies. We invite applicants to consider how their teaching intersects with the themes of this grant. We also encourage applicants to address how their intellectual interests fit within the Constellations framework that structures our department.

Duties:

• Teach 3 (3-credit) courses for the Architectural Studies Program in the History of Art and Architecture Department per semester.
• Meet with undergraduate students beyond the classroom as may be appropriate to their educational needs.
• Provide mentoring and recommendations for undergraduate students applying to graduate programs and internships.

Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

• A PhD in architectural history a closely related field (in hand by 15 August 2026)
• Some university-level teaching experience in architectural history or a closely related field.

Preferred Requirements:

• Experience as the instructor of record for a university-level course in architectural history.

Applications should include:

• Cover letter of 1-2 pages, addressed to Christopher Nygren, Department Chair. Please include a description of your teaching experience.
• Current CV, including a list of courses taught.
• Teaching Portfolio (15 pages maximum). Include a teaching statement (ca. 2 pages), a sample syllabus for a course, and a sample assignment. Also include evidence of teaching effectiveness, such as student evaluations, if available.

Review of applications will begin on 5 January 2026 and will continue until the position is filled. Questions may be directed to Christopher Nygren, Department Chair (cnygren@pitt.edu) and Evan Zajdel, Department Administrator (ewz5@pitt.edu).

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