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The Asian University for Women (AUW) welcomes having visiting faculty using sabbatical or fellowship support to spend time at the University. In exchange for taking on standard teaching responsibilities and participating in the implementation and refinement of the overall curriculum, the University will provide visiting faculty round trip economy airfare, furnished accommodation, university meal card, office space and logistical support through its international study office.
Contribute to the Founding of a New University
Visiting faculty will have an opportunity to help shape the overall educational program of a new university that is adding a strong liberal education core to the focus on pre-professional education that prevails in the region. The curriculum emphasizes a problem as opposed to a discipline-oriented approach. It encourages interdisciplinary teaching and the application of theory to the solution of regionally important problems. In this applied, innovating, problem- solving environment, visiting faculty can play an active role and have an immediate impact.
Work with the Most Unique Student Body in South Asia
The university’s mission to break down religious, caste, ethnic, and class barriers within and across nations in East, South and Southeast Asia and to open up educational opportunities for underserved women in these communities attracts an independent, motivated, risk-taking student body. Working with these students, itself, offers a rich opportunity unlike any that can be found in higher education worldwide.
Apply Theories of Your Discipline to Regional Problems
AUW seeks visiting faculty who are interested in the opportunity to introduce students to the modes of inquiry embedded in their disciplinary field through engagement with problems of particular interest in the region – problems such as affordable and renewable energy sources, health care, nutrition, sustainable food production, development of transparent civil processes and structures, and human rights. Faculty representing all fields should feel free to apply and all fields will be considered. However preference will be given to the fields listed in the Areas of Special Need Section.
Who Should Apply
Because AUW offers an interdisciplinary, problem oriented curriculum and because that kind of curriculum benefits from a team teaching approach, AUW can be flexible in accommodating a diverse range of academic interests and specialties. It likes to link scientists with social scientists and humanities specialists and vice versa. The different thematic foci of the curriculum such as health and health sciences; the environment, agriculture and economic development, and political structures and policy making offer a broad array of opportunities to select specific problems and to connect interests.
In addition to involvement in classroom instruction and advising students on their project work, AUW seeks non-classroom expertise. For example, it would welcome help from laboratory scientists in developing its own laboratory sciences and infrastructure, in developing joint research projects and in setting up field programs. The university also is seeking short-term visits by administrative personnel who can provide similar kinds of technical assistance in areas such as library and information services, finances and financial aid services, student services and health services.
How to Apply
Contact Dr. Michelle Zjhra, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, with a letter of interest and CV: michelle.zjhra@asian.university.org
Areas of Special Need
Currently the University has special interest in the following fields:
Physicists: AUW seeks physicists to offer basic interdisciplinary courses and to help interdisciplinary teams focus on “green” energy problems; to help them assess where the principles of physics might be applied to solve specific economic needs and sustainability goals and to encourage appropriate technology, invention and innovation.
Chemists: AUW seeks chemists to offer basic interdisciplinary courses and to help interdisciplinary teams focus on environmental chemistry problems; to help them assess where the principles of chemistry might be applied to solve specific economic needs and sustainability goals, and to encourage appropriate technology, invention and innovation.
Economists: AUW seeks economists to offer basic interdisciplinary courses and to help interdisciplinary teams focus on environmental and societal problems; to help them assess where the principles of economics might be applied to solve specific development and sustainability goals, and to encourage appropriate solutions, innovation, and ethical decision-making.
Engineers: AUW seeks engineers who have experience with and/or interest in stimulating invention and innovation as a way of addressing specific problems.
Mathematicians: AUW seeks mathematicians and statisticians interested in teaching mathematics, quantitative reasoning and statistics through its application to specific social, economic and environmental problems.
Computer Science: AUW seeks computer scientists who can work with faculty in a variety of fields in order to introduce students to basic and advanced concepts of software and hardware engineering.
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AUW will initially be a small university, with everyone working closely and collaboratively. Please click here to view the profiles of AUW's Inaugural Faculty and consider possible collaborations.
