Create and propose a new cluster within NYU
The Faculty Cluster initiative is an opportunity for schools and departments across NYU to recruit, support, and elevate the most innovative faculty and their research. Interdisciplinary collaboration and inclusion, within and between clusters, will enhance pedagogy and impact generations of global researchers, professionals, citizens, and leaders.
Goals
The Faculty Cluster Initiative represents a new approach to recruitment and hiring, including:
- A framework for collaboration across schools, departments, and campuses;
- Shared values to enhance the quality of teaching and research, as well as expand the faculty within clusters and disciplines;
- A process that expands faculty participation in the recruitment process, while balancing the strategic visions of schools and departments.
The Center for Faculty Advancement supports the Faculty Cluster Hiring Initiative as part of its mission to foster both individual scholars and the academic community at large by enhancing research and teaching excellence within NYU, and by promoting public engagement with the world outside of NYU. We encourage interested schools and departments to review the following criteria for creating a new cluster within NYU.
Proposal Components & Submission
Each proposed cluster must be submitted in a standard form for Schools’ Dean’s Offices to complete and submit. The form will include the following information.
- Cluster title
- Proposer names, titles, and brief bios
- University priority best fit: Inequality, Urban, Climate Change, Alliance for Public Interest Technology
- Cluster description
- Departments involved in cluster
- Proposed number of faculty, by rank, in cluster (with rationale)
- Proposed timing/order of hires (AY ’24, ’25, ’26, ’27)
- How will the proposed cluster enhance NYU’s ability to recruit and retain faculty who have experience in the following areas:
- Academic excellence and innovative research
- Interdisciplinary collaboration
- Building creative educational environments
- Divergent life experiences
- Public engagement outside the Academy
- Mentoring students, researchers, and other faculty
- What persistent scientific, social, and political challenges, problems, or opportunities will this cluster address, and how?
- How will it also enhance our ability to recruit dedicated faculty in these fields?
- How will the cluster promote innovation and pioneering research that distinguishes NYU as a leader in the proposed research area(s)?
- How will the cluster strengthen our ability to secure public and/or private external funding support for research and research impact?
- What types of scholarly and professional development opportunities might the faculty in this cluster work on together (e.g., research seminars, public events, co-teaching, policy interventions, etc.?).
- What will the represented school(s) and departments do to help ensure the success of the cluster as a whole?
- What efforts will target tenure/promotion or other professional milestones for individual faculty? To be clear, we do not expect members of the cluster to do “extra” work. Rather, we want to see a plan from schools for how they will ensure that the cluster “gels,” and produces added value.
- Briefly describe the fields of research involved in your proposed cluster, and what opportunities and challenges exist in these fields to produce an expansive pool of potential candidates.
- How will existing/emerging faculty be recruited? For each faculty position (including their respective rank) proposed for this cluster, identify one or two individuals (with links to bios/CVs) whose research profiles exemplify the faculty you seek to recruit, if your cluster proposal is approved.
- Describe the proposed plan for conducting the recruitment process, review, and final decisions about hiring cluster faculty.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Recruit and retain faculty that contribute to the academic innovation of the University
- Encourage and enhance cross-disciplinary research collaboration and the ability to seek external research funding
- Broaden NYU’s research visibility on key societal problems. Engage in evidence-based research that positively impacts the world by addressing these issues.
- Promote faculty engagement with stakeholders within and beyond the university.
All cluster proposals MUST be submitted through your school’s dean’s office. The deans of each school will/have set up the process by which cluster proposals should be discussed and developed with relevant faculty, chairs, and deans, and, if approved, submitted. Questions about the process in your school should be directed to the specific contacts listed in the School/Unit Contacts section above.
Yes. All cluster proposals, which may include between 3–6 faculty, MUST include faculty from more than one department within a single school, and may include one or more schools. If your cluster proposal includes more than one school, you should be in touch with representatives from each participating school to determine which will submit the proposal.
As with all faculty hires, each school’s dean and the provost approve faculty cluster proposals. Deans approve new clusters by submitting new cluster proposals to the Provost, who then gives final authorization to initiate hiring into the cluster.
The FCAC does not approve cluster proposals. Because this is a university-wide initiative, the role of the FCAC is to: help articulate a set of broad, shared, goals for the Initiative; represent faculty across the university to develop shared best practices for successfully recruiting, hiring, supporting, mentoring, retaining and advancing the professional development of faculty in the clusters; provide feedback on ways cluster proposals might be strengthened in terms of potential connections to human and financial resources that exist across the university; and provide a university-wide process for accountability by helping to determine a common framework for measuring and evaluating progress towards achieving the initiative’s goals. The FCAC is led by Vice Provost Charlton McIlwain.
No. Utilizing these overarching themes to facilitate the organization and focus of clusters is a means to an end. The themes help achieve the goals of the cluster initiative in terms of both hiring outcomes as well as to help distinguish NYU as a leading institution for research and impact in specific areas. However, schools may propose clusters that fall outside of the five areas above so long as they make the case, through the proposal components, that the cluster can achieve the goals and objectives of the initiative.
See the NYU Guide to Diverse Faculty Searches for more recruitment strategies and resources.