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dean of the division of kinesiology
The University of Michigan invites nominations and applications for the position
of Dean of the Division of Kinesiology.
The University of Michigan is one of the great public research universities of
the United States.
Since the
nineteenth century, it has served as a national model of a complex, diverse, and
comprehensive public institution of higher learning that supports excellence in
research, provides outstanding undergraduate, graduate, and professional
education, and demonstrates commitment to service through partnerships and
collaborations that extend nationally and internationally.
Reporting directly to the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic
Affairs, the Dean of the Division of Kinesiology
is the Chief Academic and Executive Officer of the Division.
The Division seeks a Dean who will help maintain and expand upon its
commitment to excellence in undergraduate and graduate education and research
and who will be able to draw on administrative expertise and academic rigor to
position the Division at the forefront of an increasingly competitive field.
S/he will be expected to articulate a clear vision for Kinesiology, to
have intellectual curiosity about and engagement in the diverse disciplines
within Kinesiology, and to implement creative, collaborative, and innovative
strategies to strengthen and enhance the national and international reputation
of the Division.
The University of Michigan
The University was chartered in 1817 by the Michigan territorial legislature and
was initially located in Detroit.
In 1837, the State of Michigan renewed the charter and relocated the University
to Ann Arbor, 35 miles west of Detroit.
Today, in addition to its 3,200-acre main campus in Ann Arbor, the
University has regional campuses located in Dearborn and Flint.
Michigan’s position of excellence in higher education rests on the outstanding
scholarly and creative contributions of its faculty and on the intellectual
quality, vitality, and passion of its students—undergraduate, graduate, and
professional.
A founding member of
the Association of American Universities (AAU), the University’s nineteen
schools, colleges, and divisions are nationally and internationally recognized.
The University sustains leading programs in the arts and humanities,
social sciences and natural sciences, and in all of the major professional
schools, and it serves as home to one of the largest health care complexes in
the world.
The University is also
recognized for its outstanding interdisciplinary research institutes and
centers.
Overall, there are
approximately 2,800 tenured and tenure-track faculty on the Ann Arbor campus,
and an additional 2,000 lecturers, clinical instructional faculty, and
supplemental instructional staff.
Each year the Ann Arbor campus enrolls approximately 25,000 undergraduates,
11,000 graduate students, and 3,500 professional students.
Undergraduate students come predominantly from Michigan, but also from
every state in the Union and from more than a hundred countries.
Today, the University has close to 500,000 living alumni around the
globe.
As a public university, Michigan is dedicated to service in the larger world.
Faculty research addresses a large range of critical issues—health care,
the environment, social interventions, educational reform and improvement, and
many others.
Students take part in
community-based service and learning projects, and take advantage of
opportunities made possible by the University’s many collaborations with other
universities, colleges, and K-12 schools, as well as with a variety of national,
state, and private agencies.
The University community enjoys a vast array of resources, including libraries,
concert halls, art galleries, and athletic facilities.
Hundreds of conferences, speeches, workshops, performances, and other
events take place on campus each year.
Teresa A. Sullivan
was appointed Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at the
University of Michigan on June 1, 2006. A professor of sociology in the
University’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts, Dr. Sullivan has built
a distinguished research career as a sociologist specializing in labor force
demography. Prior to her
appointment at Michigan, Dr. Sullivan served as Executive Vice Chancellor for
Academic Affairs for the University of Texas System.
Earlier in her career, she served in various leadership positions at the
University of Texas at Austin including Vice President and Graduate Dean, Vice
Provost, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Director of Women’s Studies.
She has also served as a faculty member at the University of Chicago.
She is the author or co-author of six books and more than fifty scholarly
articles. She earned her
undergraduate degree from James Madison College at Michigan State University and
her doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Under the direction of President Mary Sue Coleman and Dr. Sullivan, the
University has recently launched several major initiatives that will have an
impact on future generations of Michigan students, on the intellectual life of
the campus, and on society at large.
These include initiatives to expand interdisciplinary work across
campuses, particularly in the life sciences, to increase international
partnerships, with a focus on China and several African countries, to support
innovation and entrepreneurship through public/private partnerships and to grow
research to more than $1 billion of funding annually.
THE DIVISION
Kinesiology, from the Greek, kinesis, to move, and logos, science,
is the study of human movement. It
applies scientific and evidence-based principles with the goals of analyzing,
preserving, and enhancing human movement across the lifespan.
Although research in Kinesiology at Michigan often focuses on humans,
mathematical and animal models and business and sport organizations are studied
as well. The subdisciplines within
kinesiology employ diverse concepts, techniques and approaches that are shared
with biomechanics, neuroscience, physiology, biochemistry, psychology,
sociology, management, economics, marketing, pedagogy, public health,
engineering and/or rehabilitative and preventive medicine.
As a discipline, kinesiology is in a growth phase, both in the U.S. and
internationally.
From its beginning as the Department of Physical Education more than a hundred
years ago, to the formation of an independent academic unit in 1984, the
University of Michigan has been home to one of the leading programs in the study
of human movement, or kinesiology, in the United States.
Over the past twenty-five years, the Division has advanced far beyond its
original roots, now encompassing four distinctive programs.
Programs:
·
Movement Science,
the cross-disciplinary study of movement from biological, biomechanical, and
motor control perspectives. The
Movement Science Honors Program offers advanced coursework and independent
research opportunities in exercise physiology, biomechanics, and motor control
and development. Fourteen faculty
members prepare students with a strong science base for
graduate school in the medical and rehabilitation sciences (e.g., medical
school, physical or occupational therapy, public health) or kinesiology, or for
careers in health, research and fitness fields.
Students can also earn an MS degree in Kinesiology with a Movement
Science emphasis.
·
Athletic Training,
the study of the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of injuries in
physically active people. Students
have the opportunity for clinical training and practice in a rich variety of
venues. Three full-time faculty
members together with a number of clinical instructors provide instruction.
Graduates of this program are hired to work in
sport medicine clinics, with high school and college athletics programs, and
with professional sport teams, or go on to study for advanced degrees in the
medical sciences.
·
Sport Management,
the study of legal, marketing, media and other issues in the business of sport.
Eight faculty members work in this program, which
was founded to address the employment and research needs of the growing sport
industry, related to both spectators and participants. Sport Management students
are prepared to take on a variety of management and marketing jobs in the sport
industry, as well as continue their graduate education in areas such as business
and law. Students can also earn an
MA degree in Kinesiology with a specialty in Sport Management, and beginning in
2008-09, a dual degree will be offered in Sport Management/Business taught by
faculty in Sport Management and the Ross School of Business at Michigan.
·
Physical Education,
which prepares students to serve society as teachers of exercise and sport
skills in school systems. The coursework and directed teaching experiences lead
to K-12 teaching certification. This program, which includes four faculty
members, has the smallest number of students in Kinesiology but their job
prospects are excellent as they are highly sought after by public schools in
Michigan.
A total of twenty-nine full-time faculty now teach and mentor more than 800
undergraduate students in these four academic programs, along with over 50
graduate students who are enrolled in the Division’s master’s programs and/or
Ph.D. program.
The Division of
Kinesiology is one of the nineteen stand-alone academic units within the
University of Michigan headed by a dean.
Research:
Divisional faculty have research interests that cover a wide range of issues
across the four academic disciplines of Kinesiology including, but not limited
to:
·
Studying the effects of exercise on cellular processes that regulate energy
metabolism;
·
Identifying the underlying mechanisms of sports-related injuries;
·
Imaging of the brains of older people to understand age-related changes in
cognitive and motor behavior;
·
Evaluating the benefits of treadmill training in children with Down syndrome on
locomotor skills, cognitive development and health;
·
Developing a multilevel computational model of human skeletal muscle to
elucidate the genesis and propagation of injury;
·
Carrying out a comparative analysis of North American and world sports leagues;
and
·
Studying the management of international sport organizations.
These research efforts take place in a number of faculty directed laboratories
that are clustered in several Centers overseen by the Dean of the Division of
Kinesiology, including the Center for Clinical Biomechanics, the Center for
Exercise Research, the Michigan Center for Sport Management, the Center for
Motor Behavior and Pediatric Disabilities and the Health Management Research
Center.
Faculty in the Division
also partner with faculty in the Medical School, College of Engineering and
School of Public Health in the newly opened Bone & Joint Injury Prevention &
Rehabilitation Center.
In addition,
a number of sports and fitness programs for the University of Michigan community
and for local children are run through the Division. It sponsors and oversees
seminars and workshops on topics across the spectrum of its research priorities,
affording undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows the
opportunity to enhance their educational experiences on campus.
In addition, students are provided with ample opportunities to study
abroad, choosing from among a half dozen formal exchange agreements that
Kinesiology has with foreign universities as well as a wide variety of other
programs offered in Europe and Asia to students majoring in kinesiology
programs.
Dean Beverly Ulrich:
In her ten years of leadership, the outgoing Dean of the Division of
Kinesiology, Dr. Beverly Ulrich, has laid an outstanding foundation for the work
of her successor. Through the
recruitment of exemplary faculty members, who have strengthened undergraduate
education, invigorated the doctoral program, and been awarded funding from the
NIH, NSF, CDC, Department of Education and a variety of foundations and
corporations, Dr. Ulrich increased the academic rigor of the Division so that
research quality and academic standards closely match the other academic units
across the Michigan campus.
Simultaneously Dr. Ulrich has nurtured a collegial and community-oriented
culture among faculty and staff. As
a result, under Dean Ulrich’s leadership the Division of Kinesiology has had
many successes including:
·
Becoming the fourth largest and among the most selective undergraduate programs
on campus;
·
Increasing federal research funding, annual gift income, and endowment funds by
more than 10-fold each;
·
Achieving full-funding of all current doctoral students;
·
Opening a search for a newly funded endowed faculty chair; and
·
More than doubling its instructional, research, and office space, including the
2008 opening of the renovated Observatory Lodge Building as Kinesiology’s home.
The Position
Leading a team of twenty-nine faculty members, the Dean of the Division of
Kinesiology will have a number of core responsibilities including:
·
Providing initiative and direction to the development of academic programs;
·
Coordinating the four Kinesiology programs and fostering interdisciplinary
activities within Kinesiology and with academic departments throughout the
University;
·
Ensuring the academic needs of undergraduate and graduate students are met
effectively;
·
Actively promoting an intellectual environment that encourages and facilitates
excellent scholarship;
·
Raising funds from established and new and diverse sources to support faculty
research goals and graduate education;
·
Recruiting, developing, and retaining a diverse group of the highest caliber
faculty and students;
·
Serving as a central spokesperson for Kinesiology both within and outside the
University; and
·
Strengthening the Division’s international programs.
The next Dean of the Division of Kinesiology will build on the Division’s
strengths as a stand-alone academic unit within a world-renowned research
University that engages in wide-ranging interdisciplinary collaborations and
offers a deep breadth of Kinesiology programs.
His/her goal will be to foster the work of the Division such that it
becomes the nation’s preeminent Kinesiology program in both education and
research. In this academic leadership role, the next Dean will face
several challenges, including:
·
Moving forward development activities and planning to allow continued growth of
Kinesiology's research facilities;
·
Expanding the Division’s historic strength in interdisciplinary work to
encourage further collaboration amongst and between Kinesiology programs and
with other academic units throughout the University;
·
Working independently and with faculty to access and expand appropriate and
diverse funding for teaching, research and other divisional needs;
·
Integrating faculty across all programs to build Division synergy and maximize
efficiencies;
·
Strengthening the Division’s graduate programs by enhancing graduate curriculum
and degree offerings and uncovering new sources of graduate student funding;
·
Identifying and recruiting the highest quality faculty members, including
faculty from underrepresented groups, with strong scholarly backgrounds to
extend and complement the expertise and talents of the current faculty;
·
Expanding programs to recruit academically qualified students from
underrepresented groups at both undergraduate and graduate levels;
·
Increasing the profile of Kinesiology and its outstanding programs and research
on the Michigan campus and to the outside world; and
·
Evaluating the organizational structure, facilities needs, and administrative
support requirements for the Division and implementing an appropriate plan to
provide them.
The Successful Candidate
Given the breadth and depth of the Dean of the Division of Kinesiology’s role
and responsibilities, this challenging position requires visionary leadership,
strong management skills, and a deep understanding of and commitment to the
academic, research, and service missions of the University of Michigan.
Qualifications:
The ideal candidate will be a dynamic and energetic leader with administrative
experience and exceptional judgment along with the vision and commitment to take
an already excellent unit within an internationally recognized research
university to a leadership position as the nation’s preeminent kinesiology
program. Candidates will
demonstrate a strong commitment to diversity in all its forms and the capacity
to be an able and energetic fundraiser.
An earned doctorate in a relevant discipline is required, with a notable
record of scholarly accomplishment and other qualifications appropriate for
appointment as a full professor in Kinesiology.
The position is open to life scientists and social scientists, clinical
professionals and academics in other relevant disciplines who have a deep
understanding and appreciation of kinesiology.
Personal attributes:
The ideal candidate will also possess many of the following personal
characteristics:
·
Passionate commitment to the Division and the University, and to its mission as
a research, teaching, and service
institution of the highest quality;
·
Intellectual curiosity that drives a passion for the Division’s work;
·
Ability to communicate effectively and responsively with students, faculty,
staff, alumni and external constituents;
·
Capacity to successfully represent and advocate for Kinesiology with University
leadership, including fellow Deans, the Provost and the Board of Regents;
·
Track record of leadership that demonstrates strong support for faculty and
their work;
·
Demonstrated leadership talent and ability that involves faculty and staff and
empowers them to achieve to their highest abilities;
·
Willingness, ability, and demonstrated experience in making difficult and timely
decisions;
·
Flexibility and willingness to take on any type of challenge that might arise;
·
Commitment to working across academic units and disciplines as a team member
within the Division, across the University, nationally and internationally;
·
Commitment to the value of diversity in faculty, staff and students; and
·
Aptitude and enthusiasm for fundraising.
Applications/Nominations
Nominations and applications will be accepted and reviewed continually until the position is filled. The University's dedication to excellence is complemented by its profound commitment to building and sustaining a culturally diverse academic community. Individuals from historically underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.
Nominations and/or applications, accompanied by a letter of interest, current
curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three references,
should be submitted to:
Julie DeSorgher and Marjorie Stockford
Auerbach Associates, Inc.
385 Concord Avenue, Suite 103
Belmont, MA
02478
Electronic submissions preferred: email
caitlin@auerbach-assc.com
The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer,
and must abide by the federal requirements to take affirmative steps to ensure
its employment process is fair, equitable, and offers equal opportunity in
hiring and employment.