Position Description
The Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) and Yale Divinity School (YDS) invite applications for a faculty position with the interdisciplinary program in Music and the Black Church who will also serve as its Associate Director. The successful candidate will be appointed at the rank of Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, or Professor in the Practice, depending on education and professional experience, for terms of three to five years in length, beginning July 1, 2025. A candidate’s appointment is renewable upon successful performance reviews. The position is for a scholar and musician to teach courses and develop student ensembles (choral and instrumental) focused on Black sacred music with particular emphasis on the Gospel tradition, who will also share administrative duties for the program. Since its 2021 founding, Music and the Black Church has presented a host of courses, symposia, and concerts in addition to launching initiatives like the Church Music Skills program, which trains students in gospel voice, keyboards, and percussion. The successful candidate will provide musical and intellectual leadership by pursuing an artistic/scholarly agenda, guiding the overarching planning and development of the Program, supporting student advising, organizing events and lectures, partnering with other ISM and Divinity School programs, and fostering and strengthening connections with the broader Yale and New Haven communities. The successful candidate is expected to teach two courses per year that center the practice of Black Sacred Music as well as direct the ensembles in a robust schedule of concerts, touring, and recording.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in relevant discipline is required, but graduate training in both music and religion is highly preferred. Significant and celebrated experience in Black Sacred Music, is also expected. Three to five years college/university teaching experience strongly preferred.
Application Instructions
Applicants should submit to Interfolio a cover letter, curriculum vitae, five videos of representative performances, and names of three persons from whom letters of reference may be obtained. Applications will be reviewed beginning February 15, 2025.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Yale University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Yale values diversity among its students, staff, and faculty and strongly welcomes applications from women, persons with disabilities, protected veterans, and underrepresented minorities.
Yale Institute of Sacred Music
The Yale Institute of Sacred Music, an interdisciplinary graduate center, educates leaders who foster, explore, and study engagement with the sacred through music, worship, and the arts in Christian communities, diverse religious traditions, and public life. Partnering with the Yale School of Music and Yale Divinity School, as well as other academic and professional units at Yale, the Institute prepares its students for careers in church music and other sacred music, pastoral ministry, performance, and scholarship. The Institute’s curriculum integrates the study and practice of religion with that of music and the arts. With a core focus on Christian sacred music, the ISM builds bridges among disciplines and vocations and makes creative space for scholarship, performance, and practice.
Yale Divinity School
The mission of the Divinity School is to foster the knowledge and love of God through rigorous scholarly inquiry, the preparation of students for lives of transformative service, the promotion of broad inclusivity and diversity in our communal life, encounter with the sacred through music and the arts, and the advancement of the sustainability of the earth. Traditionally and primarily Christian in character, the school welcomes persons of all faiths and those of no faith.
A professional school within Yale University, the Divinity School is uniquely positioned to prepare leaders who will address the major issues confronting the global community. YDS prepares students through rigorous scholarly inquiry, corporate worship and spiritual formation, and engagement in a variety of practicing ministries for three major venues: lay and ordained Christian ministries; the initial stage of graduate preparation for the Academy and other professional guilds; and for public service or other careers. In all cases the school seeks to help students understand the theological dimensions of their vocations.
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