The Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AAEC) invites applications for a unique endowed position in agribusiness management and entrepreneurship. The successful candidate is expected to provide leadership for growing a premier undergraduate and graduate agribusiness analytics and entrepreneurship program. The position, the James A. and Renae C. Pearson Collegiate Faculty Fellow, will be a 9-month academic year, primarily teaching appointment with the rank of Collegiate Assistant Professor.
Leadership for the program will include working in collaboration with the Kohl Chair, the Kohl Junior Faculty Fellow, and other AAEC faculty to 1) enhance and promote instructional excellence in our renowned agribusiness program, 2) help develop a new major in applied economic analytics and deliver a curriculum that integrates data-driven decision making into traditional agribusiness courses, 3) design and expand experiential learning opportunities, including activities and programming within AAEC's Kohl Centre.
The selectee will collaborate with the Kohl Chair and other AAEC members to foster industry partnerships, connect students to paid internship and other employment opportunities as well as executive training programs, potentially with a focus on data-driven decision making. We expect the successful candidate to assist in seeking relevant funding opportunities, including training grants that provide enhanced experiential and applied research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.
Along with other administrative tasks assigned, the teaching responsibilities will include traditional classroom, team-oriented projects, and/or online instruction. Potential teaching areas include, but are not limited to, agricultural finance, entrepreneurship, business ethics, risk management, supply chain management, agribusiness and farm management, managerial economics, predictive analytics, agribusiness strategy, and agricultural marketing. The successful candidate is expected to actively engage in teaching scholarship (for example, written and oral dissemination of teaching approaches, case studies, and instructional research to relevant professional audiences), provide leadership for innovative programs and pedagogy in AAEC, and foster AAEC experiential learning and program growth opportunities with other university programs and the agribusiness community. There will also be opportunities to work with and advise both undergraduate and graduate students on topics relevant to agribusiness management.
The collegiate faculty rank is a non-tenure-track position that offers a clear promotion path with increasingly long-term contracts. Salary will be commensurate with experience.
Department, College, University, and Community: The Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech is a robust and growing unit with about 300 primary and secondary undergraduate majors, 75 graduate students, and 32 faculty members (http://www.aaec.vt.edu). The Department is located in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (http://www.cals.vt.edu/), which advises about 3000 undergraduate students and 640 graduate students across 10 departments and schools. Virginia Cooperative Extension, also located within the college, delivers research-based information to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia through county/city extension offices, 4-H educational centers, and Agricultural Research and Extension Centers (http://www.ext.vt.edu/offices). Virginia Tech (http://www.vt.edu/) is located in Blacksburg, VA (http://www.blacksburg.va.us/) with a full-time student population of more than 38,000 students. Blacksburg is nestled in the New River Valley, close to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Trail, and was recently ranked by Bloomberg's Businessweek as the best place in the U.S. to raise kids and by Forbes as one of the top 25 places in the U.S. to retire (http://www.forbes.com/places/va/blacksburg/).
The Department offers undergraduate degrees in agribusiness and applied economic management with specializations in a number of areas (http://aaec.vt.edu/academics/undergraduate.html). The Department offers a number of experiential undergraduate programs, including the Kohl Centre (https://aaec.vt.edu/extension/kohl-centre.html), COINs (http://www.coins.aaec.vt.edu/), and the Data Science for the Public Good (DSPG) (https://aaec.vt.edu/academics/undergraduate/dspg.html). The Department offers an M.S. degree in agricultural and applied economics and a Ph.D. in Economics (joint with the Department of Economics). The Department also participates in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Online Master of Agricultural and Life Sciences graduate degree program. In addition, Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region possess dynamic agricultural sectors with diverse sectors ranging from traditional commodities (e.g., grains, vegetables, and livestock) to emerging areas (e.g., local/organic food, green industry, viticulture, and aquaculture/seafood).
