The Honors College at Belmont Abbey is hiring an Assistant or Associate Professor in Great Books. The job application is here: https://belmontabbeycollege.edu/about-us/employment/great-books-assistant-or-associate-professor/. The applications should be sent to facultysearch@bac.edu. Queries can be directed to Dr. Thomas Varacalli, the Interim Dean of the Honors College, at thomasvaracalli@bac.edu.
Position Summary
The Honors College at Belmont Abbey invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professor position to begin on August 1, 2025.
Job Responsibilities
Responsibilities will include a 4/4 teaching load in the Great Books program and service to Honors College students and the broader institution of Belmont Abbey College. Service includes student advising and attendance at several Honors events, such as lectures, dinners, cultural events, dances, retreats, and our Schola summer camps.
Qualifications
First and foremost, a successful candidate must have a deep understanding and strong commitment to the revitalization of Classical education and Catholic liberal education. The candidate must view his or her teaching in light of the Catholic intellectual tradition and as directed toward having students encounter the fundamental human questions through the study of the great books of Western Civilization. The candidate should also be excited about helping to lead a community of morally serious and intellectually curious students.
Second, a successful candidate must have the expertise to teach courses on the four foundational thinkers of our curriculum: Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Third, the successful candidate must be open to teaching three of the following subjects: American Founding, Euclidean Geometry, Greek and Roman History, Medieval Literature, Modern Political Philosophy, Patristic and Scholastic Theology, the Philosophy of Science, Shakespeare, and/or the Trivium.
Fourth, a successful candidate must have a completed Ph.D. by May 2025. As an interdisciplinary program, the position is open to those with a completed Ph.D. in a number of fields. However, most faculty who teach in the program come from the humanities or social sciences. A successful candidate should be excited about possibly teaching courses and texts not in their normal area of expertise.
Fifth, the successful candidate should be familiar with teaching Socratic seminars.
A successful candidate must be legally authorized to work in the United States and committed to Belmont Abbey College’s Catholic mission.
Preference will be given to those candidates who can demonstrate 1) exemplary character; 2) a record of excellence in undergraduate teaching and a sense of teaching as a vocation; 3) a philosophy of teaching that supports the approach to education expressed in St. John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae; and 4) a strong desire to teach at a liberal arts institution where the academic program is “guided by the Catholic intellectual tradition and the Benedictine spirit of prayer and learning.”
