University of Southern California

Sol Price School of Public Policy

Adjunct Instructor of Urban Planning

Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis

The USC Sol Price School of Public Policy is seeking a working professional with expertise and a primary position in urban planning, urban policy, urban design, architecture, real estate or a related field​. The successful candidate should possess a master's degree or doctorate of ​urban planning or a related field. The candidate will be able to teach a graduate-level course related to one or more of the following areas: histories, theories, and concepts in urban design; equity and justice issues in urban planning; practices, policies, and tools in designing sustainable urban communities. ​Preference will be given to candidates with prior teaching experience and excellent teaching evaluations.

The candidate will teach PPD 644: Shaping the Built Environment, a graduate-level course designed to build students' understanding of urban design from an urban planning and policy perspective by addressing theories of good city form, equitability, and justice concerns in past, current, and future approaches to urban design planning. Through lectures, discussions, case studies, and research presentations, students will explore the roles that planners, architects, governments, and communities play in designing spaces, examining urban design's social, economic, and political foundations within a shared enterprise across architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, professions united by common concerns for human scale, public space, sense of place, sustainability, aesthetic values, and historic preservation. The course introduces foundational literature and essential concepts such as urbanism, urban form, and the interplay between space and place, while critically examining public spaces and phenomena like the flâneur and defensible space, and tracing influential theories from Modernism and New Urbanism to contemporary approaches like Tactical Urbanism and the 15 Minute City. Students will also gain hands-on experience with key urban design techniques including figure/ground analysis, visual rhetoric, observational methods, and community engagement tools like PhotoVoice, developing a comprehensive toolkit for analyzing, interpreting, and shaping urban environments to address the complex challenges of contemporary city design and planning.

The concepts, theories, and methods will be presented, interrogated, and discussed in class in a seminar format. Students will be encouraged to apply the ideas and techniques through various in-class activities and assignments focusing on analyzing specific places.

Adjunct instructor responsibilities include delivery of course content, scheduling office hours and being accessible to students as appropriate, and grading. Each instructor is expected to provide students with a syllabus outlining the course goals, schedule and all requirements for the course under the direction of the Department Chair.

The hourly rate range for this position is $29.06/hr. - $38.89/hr. When extending an offer of employment, the University of Southern California considers factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate’s work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, federal, state, and local laws, contractual stipulations, grant funding, as well as external market and organizational considerations.

The USC Sol Price School of Public Policy

Ranked among the foremost schools of public policy in the nation, the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy generates uncommon knowledge for the common good. The school is composed of overlapping disciplines that generate innovative approaches to critical issues ranging from health-care policy to homelessness, and sustainability to congestion – to name a few. A wide-ranging curriculum, including extensive experiential learning, prepares our graduates to navigate problems that demand multi-layered solutions driven by critical, informed thinking.

The Price School, founded in 1929, is anchored by four departments: Public Policy and Management, Health Policy and Management, Wilbur H. Smith III Department of Real Estate Development, and Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis. The School’s rigorous academic programs provide students with the knowledge and distinctive opportunities to make meaningful contributions to their professions. Integrating classroom instruction with real-world experience and led by some of the world’s most renowned faculty in their fields, our students establish a clear pathway to successful careers.

Our academic programs are augmented by numerous research centers, institutes and initiatives that provide additional research expertise and experiences, notable among them are: The Judith and John Bedrosian Center on Governance and the Public; The Center for Philanthropy and Public Policy; The USC Lusk Center for Real Estate; The METRANS Transportation Consortium; The Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics; and The Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy. Together, they account for over $100 million in externally funded research grants and contracts.

Together, these departments and research enterprises provide unmatched breadth and depth to tackle an enormous range of challenges facing our country and the world. Price graduates hold leadership positions across diverse sectors – public, private, and nonprofit – championing the advancement of the common good. They come from around the world and from a variety of cultures and socio-economic backgrounds to create a rich intellectual environment that celebrates, supports and benefits from a variety of backgrounds and opinions.

For additional information, see our website: https://priceschool.usc.edu.

Apply for this Position: Applicants should submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, one or more sample syllabi, and one or more sets of sample teaching evaluations.

Salary : $29 - $39