Career Center

At Illinois State University in the Department of English we are committed to supporting English language arts (ELA) teachers’ ongoing professional learning as they seek to enact more equitable and inclusive instruction in their current and future classrooms. We seek to foster and promote our teacher candidates’ (undergraduates and post-baccalaureate students studying to become state certified teachers) abilities to contribute to educational change by honing their skill as critically self-reflexive, innovative, and collaborative learners and teachers.

We invite you to join our intellectual community. We are eager to welcome a new full-time 10-month, administrative professional (continuous, non-tenured) in the role of Director of English Education to begin August 1, 2023.

The Director is responsible for ensuring that the English Education program’s commitment to socially just English Language Arts instruction is modeled and supported in all aspects of the program. The Director leads, mentors, and supervises English Education staff, including the full-time Coordinator of Clinical Experiences and the full-time English Education Advisor and Clinical Instructor. The Director also provides instruction (one course or the equivalent per semester) within the English Education sequence (which may include introductory English Education and methods coursework, supervising student teachers, and leading the student teaching seminar) as well as monitoring student proficiencies and progress across the program and developing student leadership through program initiatives.

Our English education program is a vibrant, inclusive learning and teaching community that seeks to honor and nurture diverse perspectives and lived experiences. On average each semester, there are between 160-175 secondary undergraduate teacher candidates journeying through our teacher preparation program, which leads to initial certification. We are committed to recruiting, mentoring, and supporting an increasingly diverse future teaching population. Teacher candidates benefit from a robust set of student leadership opportunities and programs, including an advisory council, a self-funded statewide grant initiative for secondary ELA teachers who wish to include diverse texts in their curricula, and an annual local NCTE African American Read-In partnership with area schools. Our graduate master’s degree program for practicing ELA teachers offers an innovative synchronous learning opportunity that includes an in-person summer retreat and culminates in a teacher action research thesis project. Both programs’ joint focus on socially just ELA teaching and learning benefit from collaboration among program faculty and staff, including a full-time undergraduate Director of English Education and a full-time English education advisor. Program faculty and staff are involved in shared curricular revision and program decision-making. Alums and program students teach in secondary schools throughout the state of Illinois and beyond, and ongoing relationships with them provide a rich network of sustained partnerships for research and field experiences in urban, suburban, and rural school contexts as well as for regular joint presentations at state and national conferences.

Required Qualifications:

1. Doctorate in English education or closely related field, completed prior to the start date of appointment;
2. Commitment to and experience enacting and reflecting on socially just English Language Arts instruction;
3. A minimum of three years of documented effective experience teaching English in diverse middle and/or high school settings;
4. Knowledge of current research in the field of English Education as well as recent educational initiatives in secondary schools that help one advocate for program needs and strengths within systems of education; and
5. Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively, including equitably leading and mentoring students and colleagues while calling people into program policy and vision.