Faculty Search: University of Michigan, Urban and Regional Planning

(link with this same information)

For over 100 years the mission of Taubman College has been to prepare students for positions of responsibility within a wide spectrum of professions, organizations and institutions whose goals are to improve the quality of our lives and the built environment. The college offers a complement of programs, ranging from undergraduate to doctoral degrees in Architecture, Urban Planning, and Urban Design.

The Urban + Regional Planning Program offers a professional Master of Urban Planning as well as a Ph.D. The program has about 130 master's students and about 15 Ph.D. students in residence each year. About one-third of students are enrolled in dual degrees with Law, Business, Public Policy, Public Health, Social Work, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, and Natural Resources and Environment.

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Taubman College seeks to make three appointments to begin September 1, 2012 in the following areas:

Tenure-track faculty members (Assistant Professor) in Urban and Regional Planning

The Michigan Urban and Regional Planning Program has been awarded three new faculty positions within the University's Interdisciplinary Junior Faculty Initiative. These positions, which will substantively link to others in different units in "cluster hires," will build upon Michigan's strength in scholarship that cuts across academic disciplines, while also improving connections between students and faculty. (Applicants should consult the full cluster proposal for the position for which he or she wishes to apply, available at the bottom of this posting.)

The three cluster-hire positions awarded to the Urban and Regional Planning Program are:

Sustainability and Behavior (UM Job Posting No. 60809):

This cluster will lead to new faculty positions in the Ford School of Public Policy, the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and the Urban and Regional Planning Program. It will explore the sustainability implications of individual behavior, the design of policies and institutions, and the interaction of the two. Within this cluster the Urban and Regional Planning program is seeking a specialist in land-use planning and management. We particularly invite applications from candidates whose research and teaching address behavior relevant to the production and functioning of the built environment and the conservation of the natural environment at both the individual level (e.g., lifestyle, consumption behaviors, conservation behaviors, political action) and the institutional level (policy formation and institutional design). The faculty member appointed through this hire will teach primarily in the graduate planning curricula, although the ability to teach at both undergraduate and graduate levels is a plus.

Urban Studies (UM Job Posting No. 60577):

This cluster, designed to create a "Detroit School" of urban studies, will lead to new faculty positions in the Department of Afro-American and African Studies, the School of Social Work, the Department of Sociology, and the Urban and Regional Planning Program. We are most interested in candidates with research and teaching interests focusing on urban inequality and/or urban sustainability in metropolitan areas such as Detroit that in the past depended on manufacturing employment and that have experienced considerable decline. An applicant need not have focused on Detroit and its metropolitan area in previous research, but an interest in working in a Detroit-centered research and teaching cluster is essential. An applicant should have a background in urban planning and strong interest in the professional field's concern about how planning, policy, and design changes can solve problems related to inequality in places. Experience or interest in conducting research that derives findings from a particular city and contributes findings to the solution of urban and regional challenges is required. Prior scholarship related to urban challenges in historically industrial regions is desirable. The faculty member appointed through this hire will teach undergraduate urban studies courses and courses in the graduate planning curriculum.

Sustainable Food Systems (UM Job Posting No. 60576):

This cluster will lead to new faculty positions in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Business, School of Natural Resources and Environment, School of Public Health, and the Urban and Regional Planning Program. In Urban and Regional Planning, the person hired for this position should teach and conduct research in at least one of the subspecialties of economic development, community development, land use planning and policy (including the ecological aspects of land use planning), infrastructure systems planning, and physical planning. The ideal applicant will integrate different subspecialties and contribute to the body of knowledge on community-based, sustainable food systems issues. Productive collaboration with researchers from the environmental, ecological, business, and/or public health disciplines is a plus, as is interest and experience in conducting research on sustainable food systems in non-U.S. and/or comparative international settings. The faculty member appointed through this hire will be expected to teach at least one synthetic graduate course on sustainable food systems, possibly co-taught with one or more members of the cluster hire from other units, as well as other courses in the graduate planning curriculum. The candidate may also teach a course in the University of Michigan's undergraduate Program in the Environment, depending on the interests and needs of both the candidate and PitE.

For All Positions:

A graduate degree in planning or a closely related field, such as geography, American studies, African-American studies, environmental studies, urban design, or law, is required, as long as the candidate has a strong background in urban planning. A Ph.D. in urban planning or a closely related field is highly desired. The demonstrated ability to conduct academic research is required, and demonstrated engagement with interdisciplinary collaboration is highly desired. Candidates should have a record of teaching, scholarship, publication and/or several years of related professional experience.

Candidates hired through this initiative will be expected to contribute to core courses in the graduate Urban and Regional Planning Program curriculum and to courses in one or more concentration areas: land-use and environmental planning; physical planning and design; transportation planning; planning in developing countries; and housing, community and economic development.

Candidates hired through this initiative will also be expected to collaborate with the cluster faculty hired in the other units for the respective cluster, and they will be encouraged to collaborate with other faculty within Taubman College.

Review of applications will begin December 1, 2011, and will continue until the positions are filled.

Applicants should send the following materials electronically as a single PDF file, organized as follows: (1) a letter explaining your interest in a position (outlining both teaching and research agendas); (2) a current curriculum vita; and (3) the names and contact information (including mailing address, phone number, and email address) for three references. Email the application to Jennifer Pinkham (pinkhamj@umich.eduu), indicating the desired position and Job Posting number in the subject line.

The University of Michigan is a non-discriminatory, affirmative action employer.

About the Urban and Regional Planning Program

The Urban and Regional Planning Program offers a professional Master of Urban Planning as well as a Ph.D. The program has about 130 master's students and about 15 Ph.D. students in residence each year. About one-third of the master degree students are enrolled in dual degrees with Law, Business, Public Policy, Public Health, Social Work, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Natural Resources and Environment, and others.

• URP UM Cluster Initiative Proposal – Sustainability and Behavior (PDF 133KB)
• URP UM Cluster Initiative Proposal – Sustainable Food Systems (PDF 207KB)
• URP UM Cluster Initiative Proposal – Urban Studies (PDF 380KB)

Job Posting: Mississippi State University

MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY—The Department of Sociology seeks qualified applicants for at least two (2) tenured or tenure-track positions at the Assistant, Associate Professor or Professor rank to begin in Fall 2012 pending budgetary approval. A Ph.D. in Sociology or related field is required for appointment at the Assistant Professor level, but ABD’s will be considered for appointment at the level of Instructor until the Ph.D. is obtained. Primary areas of teaching and research will be in (1) criminology, (2) social demography (loosely defined), (3) social stratification or (4) community and rural sociology. Applicants who bridge more than one area will be given higher consideration. Maximum teaching load is 2/2. Programs offered include BA, MS, and Ph.D. in Sociology. The department consists of 20 faculty members (18 in Sociology and 2 in Social Work), nearly 400 undergraduate majors and 50 sociology graduate students. The Department also has strong ties to the University’s programs in African American Studies and Gender Studies. Applications should include a vita, a letter describing teaching and research interests, and any supporting materials that demonstrate teaching and/or service achievements. Candidates are requested to note membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Materials should be sent to: Chair, Search Committee, Department of Sociology, P.O. Box C, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762. Candidates should have at least three letters of recommendation sent directly to the Chair of the Search Committee. Applicants must also apply online at www.jobs.msstate.edu, PARF # 6221. Review of applications will begin November 1 2011, though applications will be accepted and reviewed until the position is filled. The largest university in the state, Mississippi State University is a public, land grant university of more than 20,000 students classified as Doctoral/Research Extensive by the Carnegie Foundation. MSU is an AA/EOE.

Contact Lynne Cossman (Lynne.Cossman@msstate.edu) if you have questions.

Call for Abstracts: XIII World Congress of Rural Sociology

The XIII World Congress of Rural Sociology is now accepting abstracts for its paper sessions (deadline for abstracts is Jan 15, 2012). The conference will be held July 29-August 4, 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal. For further details please go to: http://irsa2012.com/event/irsa-2012/introduction/. Abstracts for the paper session can be submitted at http://irsa2012.com/event/irsa-2012/proposals/

Call for Papers: International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food

International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food - Call for Papers

Special Issue: Private Agri-food Standards

Guest Editors:

· Carmen Bain, Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, U.S.

· Elizabeth Ransom, Department of Sociology, University of Richmond, U.S.

· Vaughan Higgins, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Australia

Until recently, government was primarily responsible for developing and ensuring compliance with standards for public goods within the food system. Public uniform standards were intended to ensure that food was safe, reassure consumers of a product’s quality and consistency, and promote fair market competition. However, the liberalization of international trade, expansion of global value chains, and intensification of neoliberal economic reforms have constrained the role of the state in setting standards and encouraged the proliferation of private standards and private standards makers. Private standards now pervade the contemporary global agrifood system.

Food retailers, business and industry associations, development organizations, and social movement organizations (SMO) now play a central role in establishing and enforcing standards. The changing global economic and political environment has created new opportunities and challenges for actors to use standards (together with labels and certification systems) strategically to accomplish various objectives. For example, food retailers and SMO may use standards to differentiate markets (e.g. for baby pineapples or Fair Trade), to provide safety and quality assurances to consumers (e.g. organic or non-GMO), or, in the case of retailers, to minimize the threat of liability and scandal by demonstrating that their products are produced in a socially and environmentally responsible manner.

Standards can no longer be dismissed as simply taken-for-granted mechanisms to facilitate markets and trade or technoscientific tools primarily of interest to specialists. Rather, private agrifood standards have emerged as powerful governance mechanisms that allow actors to ‘act at a distance’; to set rules, define the boundaries of what is good and bad, coordinate activities, and discipline the conduct of people, markets, things and nature across commodity networks. Furthermore, as a product of negotiation and strategic action, standards embody the interests, values, and asymmetrical power relations of different actors in the value chain. Within this context, social scientists have an important role to play in understanding how private standards are used to govern agrifood systems and their implications for relationships of power and inequality.

Authors are invited to submit an abstract addressing one or more of the following topics related to private agrifood standards:

· The relationship between private standards and public forms of governing.

· How consumers and SMOs are driving standards development.

· The role of labels and third-party certification in ensuring trust, transparency and legitimacy of private standards.

· The role of technoscience and experts (e.g. in creating or legitimizing private standards).

· The effect of private standards on corporate responsibility and accountability.

· What values are reflected in private standards (economic efficiency, animal welfare, worker welfare).

· How standards enhance or constrain the capacity of actors to participate in the market.

· The role of standards in transforming national markets and political institutions in developed and developing countries.

· Regional, national, or cultural influences on the operation of standards and the ways this might vary between regions, nations, or cultures.

· How standards construct particular fields of visibility: that is, who or what is made visible (child laborers) and who or what is made invisible (subcontracted workers, women).

Abstracts will be selected based on quality and whether they fit into a coherent issue.

Timeline:

1 November 2011: Submission of abstracts (300 words)

1 December 2011: Notification to authors if abstracts have been selected for special issue

1 March 2011: Submission of full papers (6000-8000 words)

1 June 2011: Reviewer comments to authors

1 August 2012: Submission of final revised papers by authors to editors

Feb/March 2013: Publication

Submission of Abstracts

Please send your abstracts by 1 November 2011 to: Carmen Bain cbain@iastate.edu

Abstracts should include a title, list of authors, contact details, a concise description of the envisioned paper, an identification of the relationship between the envisioned paper and at least one of the suggested themes, and up to five keywords. Full papers are expected by 1 March 2012 after which they will be sent out for peer review. A decision on the papers will be communicated to the authors by the editors by 1 June 2012. Publication is expected in early 2013.