Applying for Promotion in Higher Education with an Emphasis on Letterpress
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Although each University or College has its own guidelines for academic promotions, an overview of general considerations most likely required can be helpful. Having experienced this application process within the last year, the “lessons learned” by Martha Chiplis and Cathie Ruggie Saunders are shared with the hope that our familiarity with it might make writing your application a smoother process in the future.
Since Martha desired to move from Instructor to Assistant Professor, Adjunct, and I wanted to move from Associate Professor to Full Professor, Adjunct, the frameworks were somewhat different. However, for the purposes of Makeready, it is advantageous to see both. Some of you may be at one end of the ranking spectrum, and others at the farther end.
We will each show you our digital dossiers, but our actual narration will speak to important points that emerged from the process, and lessons learned. As of this writing, Martha’s application was successful, and I am still holding my breath.
Cathie Ruggie Saunders:
Associate Professor, Adjunct & Letterpress Coordinator:
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Professor, Art & Design Department Chair, and SXU Gallery Director:
Saint Xavier University.
Exhibitions: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Temari Center for Asian & Pacific Fibers, Hawaii; American Cultural Center, New Delhi, India.
Awards: American Graphic Design Award 2019, 2014, First Annual Tampa Book Arts Studio Letterpress Excellence Award in Contemporary Ephemera (with Martha Chiplis); Illinois Arts Council Artists Fellowship; Teaching Excellence Award, Saint Xavier University.
Publications: For the Love of Letterpress, a Printing Handbook for Instructors & Students, written and designed with Martha Chiplis, 2013. Bloomsbury, London. Second edition: August 2019.
Martha Chiplis has an MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She first printed on a Vandercook in 1984, and bought her own press in 1989. She worked for Sherwin Beach Press as a letterpress printer and designer for 16 years and began teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. She is a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, letterpress printer, and coauthor of "For the Love of Letterpress: a Printing Handbook for Instructors and Students," published by Bloomsbury LLC, now in its second edition.
