What are the responsibilities and job description for the Career-Track Professor (Media Production) position at Arizona State University?
The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University seeks an experienced professional to lead the school’s media production learning experiences, manage production operations and inspire early-career creators to advance their production skills.
The professor champions production at the Cronkite School, supporting students in studio and live production learning experiences and overseeing operations, maintenance and support of the school’s media equipment and growing television and podcast studios. As a master teacher, the professor provides immersive instruction in all aspects of production, from video editing and motion graphics to directing, audio engineering, lighting and camera operation for daily news and sports TV programs; as a disciplinary leader, the professor ensures the Cronkite School advances production innovation by ensuring equipment, environments and approaches are functional and forward-looking. The professor oversees a team of media production professionals, including a broadcast engineer, a studio manager and a production equipment manager, all dedicated to ensuring production excellence and student success.
The successful candidate will be a knowledgeable production expert with vast TV and digital production experience, and a student-first instructor inspired by the future of media. The candidate will demonstrate a commitment to organization and collaboration; an ability to communicate and motivate in high-pressure, fast-paced production environments; possess the skills to inspire, support and instruct student creators; and instinctively deliver clear direction and feedback.
This is a full-time, benefits-eligible, 12-month appointment based on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus. It is a year-to-year appointment, not a tenure-track appointment, and carries the academic rank of assistant, associate or full clinical professor, or assistant, associate or full teaching professor.
Essential Duties
The Cronkite School is widely recognized as the nation’s premier mass communication school, ranked a top collegiate program by the Broadcast Education Association for four consecutive years. Rooted in the time-honored values that characterize its namesake—accuracy, responsibility, integrity—the school fosters excellence and ethics among students as they master the professional skills required to succeed in the digital media world of today and tomorrow.
Based on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus in the heart of the nation’s fifth-largest city, the School is known for its hands-on, “teaching hospital” approach to learning led by a faculty composed of Pulitzer Prize-winning professional journalists, strategic communications leaders and world-class media scholars. More than 2,500 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students regularly lead the country in national competitions as they prepare for careers in journalism, PR, marketing, strategic media and related communication fields.
About Arizona State University
Arizona State University, ranked the No. 1 “Most Innovative School” in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for 10 years in succession, has forged the model for a New American University. Repeatedly ranked No. 1, ASU has topped more than 20 lists in the last three years: No. 1 in the U.S. for global impact (Times Higher Education) and No. 1 in the U.S. for sustainable practices (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). ASU is a comprehensive public research institution, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves. ASU operates on the principles that learning is a personal and original journey for each student; that they thrive on experience and that the process of discovery cannot be bound by traditional academic disciplines. Through innovation and a commitment to accessibility, ASU has drawn pioneering researchers to its faculty even as it expands opportunities for qualified students, attracting some of the highest-quality students from all 50 states and more than 130 nations.
Required Qualifications
Candidates must have a master’s degree (for clinical professor ranks) or a relevant terminal degree (for teaching professor ranks) at the time of appointment, and at least 7 years professional production experience in a major-market or national media organization, or equivalent specialized experience. Assistant, associate and full ranks are commensurate with experience.
Desired Qualifications
The professor champions production at the Cronkite School, supporting students in studio and live production learning experiences and overseeing operations, maintenance and support of the school’s media equipment and growing television and podcast studios. As a master teacher, the professor provides immersive instruction in all aspects of production, from video editing and motion graphics to directing, audio engineering, lighting and camera operation for daily news and sports TV programs; as a disciplinary leader, the professor ensures the Cronkite School advances production innovation by ensuring equipment, environments and approaches are functional and forward-looking. The professor oversees a team of media production professionals, including a broadcast engineer, a studio manager and a production equipment manager, all dedicated to ensuring production excellence and student success.
The successful candidate will be a knowledgeable production expert with vast TV and digital production experience, and a student-first instructor inspired by the future of media. The candidate will demonstrate a commitment to organization and collaboration; an ability to communicate and motivate in high-pressure, fast-paced production environments; possess the skills to inspire, support and instruct student creators; and instinctively deliver clear direction and feedback.
This is a full-time, benefits-eligible, 12-month appointment based on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus. It is a year-to-year appointment, not a tenure-track appointment, and carries the academic rank of assistant, associate or full clinical professor, or assistant, associate or full teaching professor.
Essential Duties
- Teach lower-, upper- and graduate-division courses in media production skills, concepts and approaches
- Guide mastery-level students in production, motion graphics and control room operations for the award-winning Cronkite News and other television programs and livestreams
- Mentor students in all production roles, providing hands-on instruction and motivation toward independent, high-quality production
- Oversee the Cronkite School’s television/video and podcast studios; control rooms; and related production equipment, ensuring technical health, accessibility and efficient support for students, faculty, staff and professionals
- Foster a learning culture that inspires mass communication students with multimedia content, tools and techniques
- Serve as a media production thought leader, proactively staying abreast of new tools, techniques and technology; curating exemplars of superior content and approaches; and highlighting superb student work
- Collaborate with school leadership and faculty to support and evaluate curricula.
- Supervise a team of media production professionals to support production learning environments and operations
- Supervise student workers in accordance with ASU Work standards, including hiring, training, scheduling, approving time, and providing ongoing feedback.
- Lead planning and implementation of studio and set upgrades
- Working within project budgets
- Perform service both internally (e.g., committee assignments, student recruitment) and externally (e.g. professional workshops, contest judging)
- Perform other duties as assigned
The Cronkite School is widely recognized as the nation’s premier mass communication school, ranked a top collegiate program by the Broadcast Education Association for four consecutive years. Rooted in the time-honored values that characterize its namesake—accuracy, responsibility, integrity—the school fosters excellence and ethics among students as they master the professional skills required to succeed in the digital media world of today and tomorrow.
Based on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus in the heart of the nation’s fifth-largest city, the School is known for its hands-on, “teaching hospital” approach to learning led by a faculty composed of Pulitzer Prize-winning professional journalists, strategic communications leaders and world-class media scholars. More than 2,500 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students regularly lead the country in national competitions as they prepare for careers in journalism, PR, marketing, strategic media and related communication fields.
About Arizona State University
Arizona State University, ranked the No. 1 “Most Innovative School” in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for 10 years in succession, has forged the model for a New American University. Repeatedly ranked No. 1, ASU has topped more than 20 lists in the last three years: No. 1 in the U.S. for global impact (Times Higher Education) and No. 1 in the U.S. for sustainable practices (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). ASU is a comprehensive public research institution, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves. ASU operates on the principles that learning is a personal and original journey for each student; that they thrive on experience and that the process of discovery cannot be bound by traditional academic disciplines. Through innovation and a commitment to accessibility, ASU has drawn pioneering researchers to its faculty even as it expands opportunities for qualified students, attracting some of the highest-quality students from all 50 states and more than 130 nations.
Required Qualifications
Candidates must have a master’s degree (for clinical professor ranks) or a relevant terminal degree (for teaching professor ranks) at the time of appointment, and at least 7 years professional production experience in a major-market or national media organization, or equivalent specialized experience. Assistant, associate and full ranks are commensurate with experience.
Desired Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience working in live and studio production environments with early-career professionals.
- Demonstrated mastery of television and digital production workflows, including switcher operations, graphics systems, playback systems, audio/video routing, livestreaming and encoding, ideally in a news setting.
- Experience with newsroom systems such as ENPS, Chyron, EVS and automation software.
- Mastery of the Adobe Creative Suite (particularly Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Audition).
- Experience teaching production workflows, technology and techniques across pre-production, live production and post-production environments to others.
- Evidence of a network of production professionals and experts who can advise on the field.
- Experience working with undergraduate or graduate students in a university or professional setting and evaluating student work.
- Experience using an online training or learning management system (e.g. Canvas, Blackboard).