The American Indian Studies program is in the process of organizing joint searches to be conducted with both the anthropology and philosophy and religious studies departments to hire two tenure-track professors to teach classes within the American Indian Studies program.

“We’d like to have people interviewed this spring and ideally begin their employment in the fall of 2006,” said associate professor of English Sidner Larson, director of the American Indian Studies program with the new American Intercultural Studies Center.

The professors will be hired jointly with either the anthropology department or philosophy and religious studies department. Iowa State requires professors to have a specific “home department,” which cannot be an academic program, such as the American Indian studies program, Larson said.

“Being a joint appointment, the new professors’ tenure home will be their respective academic department, and half their responsibilities will be with the American Indian studies program,” said Doug Epperson, associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “This is true for all joint appointments at Iowa State and is not something unique to the American Indian Studies program at all.”

Epperson said the professors’ respective home department and the American Indian Studies program will collaborate in reviews and other tenure-related decisions.

Members of the American Indian Studies search committee have already been appointed and will be meeting next week to finalize the job description for applicants, said Shu-Min Huang, anthropology department chairman and member of the search committee.

“Once we finalize the position’s job description, we will send out nationwide advertisements for the positions,” he said.

The process of advertising the positions will mainly be handled by the two academic departments, which usually include print media outlets such as mainstream academic journals, as well as a number of Web sites, Epperson said.

“The goal of the search committee is to get the word out about these positions as widely as possible,” he said. “In all of our searches, for all positions at the university, we encourage search committees to generate the most diverse pool of applicants possible. When we make position announcements, we try to post them so we reach all potential audiences,” he said.

Candidates’ ethnicity will not be a significant deciding factor, Huang said.

“The emphasis will be placed in the candidates’ academic potential and whom we believe will work toward tenure,” he said.

An equally qualified Native American candidate, however, may be a valuable asset, Larson said.

“Membership or a working connection to an existing tribal community would be a plus,” he said.