FIT NYC Full-Time Faculty Position in Communication Design Foundation, School of Art and Design

About Fashion Institute of Technology:

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), an internationally renowned college of art and design, business and technology, of the State University of New York, invites nominations and applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty position in the Communication Design Foundation program in the Communication Design Pathways department in the School of Art and Design.

The Fashion Institute of Technology, a part of the State University of New York, has been a leader in career education in art, design, business, and technology for nearly 80 years. With a curriculum that provides a singular blend of hands-on, practical experience, classroom study, and a firm grounding in the liberal arts, FIT offers a wide range of outstanding programs that are relevant to today's rapidly changing industries. Internationally renowned, FIT draws on its New York City location to provide a vibrant, creative community in which to learn. The college offers more than 45 majors and grants AAS, BFA, BS, MA, MFA, and MPS degrees, preparing students for professional success and leadership in the global marketplace.

With close ties to industry, FIT draws faculty from the city's art, business, and design elite, and from the rich academic community of the region. The college continually seeks creative faculty members who are passionate about their field and demonstrate exceptional professional capability in the core competencies of instruction design, learning enrichment, globalism, and use of technology, as well as mastery of established and emerging industry practices.

The mission of FIT's School of Art and Design is to educate the next generation of creative, socially responsible and globally relevant professionals able to succeed in the broad spectrum of art and design fields. The school challenges students to create new and valuable ideas through innovation, collaboration and experimentation.

The Communication Design Pathways Department at FIT offers a one-year accelerated and a two-year Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree in Communication Design Foundation, which introduce students to a variety of means and tools of visual communication, including digital design, design process, typography, dimensional design, and color theory. The program also prepares students to apply for four specialized Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) programs in Advertising and Digital Design, Graphic Design, Packaging Design, and Spatial Experience Design.

The Communication Design Pathways Department aims to foster creative thinkers, talented doers, and imaginative innovators who can break through the noise with high-impact design, meaningful messages, and memorable experiences. The department provides students with a robust foundation in design principles and practices, hands-on skills in various media and technologies, and opportunities to connect with industry professionals and alumni. The department also encourages students to explore their own interests and passions through elective courses, minors, and study abroad programs. The Communication Design Pathways Department is committed to excellence in design education and preparing students for successful careers in the fields.

Job Description:

The School of Art and Design seeks a forward-thinking, collaborative, technologically advanced multidisciplinary brand designer with leadership expertise for the Communication Design Foundation Program in the Communication Pathways Department. The successful design candidate will be experienced in design development, including consumer product packaging, experience, print and digital media. The candidate must be a self-starting creative who will contribute to shaping the long-term vision, mission, and future of the Department including the Communication Design Foundation AAS, the Packaging Design BFA, Graphic Design BFA, Advertising and Digital Design BFA and the Spatial Experience Design BFA program, aligned with the mission of the school, and with the college's strategic plan.

The ideal candidate will demonstrate established professional brand design experience with a portfolio that demonstrates a proclivity for experiential brand design, including brand strategy, brand/graphic design, a step-by-step design methodology and process, consumer product packaging design, three-dimensional design, retail, motion graphics, and interactive design. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to articulate the interconnection of these disciplines for the brand development of consumer products and services. The successful candidate will possess leadership experience in the brand design profession with a wide range of projects multidisciplinary in approach, as well as a proven ability of both individual design accomplishment and creative design direction leadership.

The new faculty will teach Associate and Bachelor level foundational courses, serve in an active role and participate in departmental activities, and college-wide service, coordinate student internships, support faculty mentorship, collaborate and innovate curriculum development. Candidates interested in departmental leadership roles are welcome.

The ideal candidate should pursue and sustain creative and professional activities, affiliation with and participation in organizations of the brand design discipline, and maintain a broad network of industry contacts to build academic-industry partnerships.

Successful candidates will excel in the following areas:

Globalism

• Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of global brand design including connections with organizations and leading design firms.
• Demonstrate an understanding of international corporate strategy for consumer and service product marketing.
• Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the global impact of e-commerce, sustainability and social on brand design.
• Demonstrate an awareness of professional, ethical and social responsibility.

Instructional Design

• Demonstrate expertise in the Adobe Creative Suite and interest and commitment in learning new technologies.
• Demonstrate uncompromising attention to detail, organization and ability to integrate skills and methodology of brand design physically and digitally to help shape a collaborative curriculum.
• Implement an academically rigorous experience by incorporating professional business practices of brand design in classroom learning.
• Maintain strong connections within the brand design discipline to provide currency and to introduce and integrate new methodologies into the curriculum.
• Utilize the college's learning management system to maintain information required for assessment monitoring.
• Demonstrate commitment to student-centeredness with active engagement in the classroom and participation in student work reviews, and provide constructive feedback, assessment, and guidance.
• Incorporate instructional variety and appropriate assessment to service students of different learning styles, abilities.

Learning Enrichment

• Demonstrate the ability to inspire interest, curiosity, creativity, and love of learning in students, and the ability to support different student learning styles and abilities.
• Utilize a variety of instructional delivery methods including various media sources that foster critical design thinking, and creative problem-solving.
• Demonstrate currency in the brand discipline, including new technology and the ability to incorporate changes into a progressive curriculum.
• Incorporate interdisciplinary approaches to teaching in a brand design learning environment.
• Contribute to ongoing student centeredness through advisement and mentorship and encourage engagement with the world of consumer product branding, packaging and spatial experience design.
• Emphasize the development of critical thinking capabilities through a focus on planning, progress and critique of work throughout the design process, and excellence in final work deliverables.
• Demonstrate ability to lead collaborative work through team building and an understanding of the collaborative nature of learning and professional achievement.
• Demonstrate an understanding of uses of social media not only as a necessity for brand design success, but as a tool for outreach to the community.
• Embrace new forms of pedagogy including online teaching, blended classes, workshops, flipped classrooms, and experiential learning.
• Demonstrate ability to model successful participation in the field for students and provide mentorship that will lead to their first steps in a successful professional career.
• Demonstrate currency in industry practices and importance to students and graduates.
• Cultivate and maintain engagement with other academic institutions across the country and globally.

Professionalism

• Demonstrate the ability to cultivate and foster sustained relationships, convey and debate a design rationale, and work with all faculty, students, and industry stakeholders.
• Demonstrate continued active engagement in creative and/or scholarly work aligned to the brand design discipline and actively engage in professional, scholarly, and academic activities.
• Maintain and foster a cultivated network of alumni and experts in the discipline who will serve as a resource for internships, mentors, curriculum development, guest speakers, and placement opportunities for graduates.
• Demonstrate currency and engagement in the teaching discipline.
• Model professional behavior that prepares students for entry into related fields.
• Demonstrate the ability to organize and lead program and departmental initiatives.
• Demonstrate collaboration and engagement in contributing to and participating in administrative and committee service for the program, department, the school, and the college.

Technology

• Demonstrate capability and currency in utilizing course management systems and technology to deliver course material and convey practical learning experiences to students.
• Demonstrate expertise and possess brand design-specific technology skills and demonstrate effective utilization of technology and software in graphic and dimensional design.
• Demonstrate interest and commitment in areas of emerging technologies in the brand design discipline.
• Demonstrate knowledge of print production and dimensional fabrication technology.
• Cultivate technology curiosity in the classroom through integration with student project work.

The preceding description is not designed to be a complete list of all duties and responsibilities required of the position; other duties may be assigned consistent with the classification of the position.

Requirements:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in a related design field and required with a minimum of six (6) years of professional experience in brand design for consumer and service-oriented products. Can include multiple design media, and specialties in consumer packaging branding, experience and activation branding, motion graphics branding, or digital media branding.
• Minimum of (3) years academic experience either as an adjunct or full-time faculty.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree in design, business, or a liberal arts area.

Additional Information:

Please note, all offers of employment are contingent upon successful completion of the background check process.

Salary

The final starting salary and appointment rank will be based on education level and cumulative experience; Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Salary Schedules pgs. 73-74.

Instructor: $69,346.37 - $80,793.82
Assistant Professor: $80,736.40 - $118,984.88
Associate Professor: $94,498.31 - $142,271.78
Professor: $115,232.32 - $173,403.37

The College reserves the right to select one or more candidates after having been duly reviewed and presented to the President in conformance with the provisions of Article 15 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Benefits

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) provides comprehensive employee benefit programs designed to help keep our faculty and staff and their families healthy, safe, happy, and productive. Our programs also include a variety of components to help our employees improve the quality and balance of their work and family lives, and to help them prepare for their futures.

• Retirement Plans
• Health Care Plan and Dental Plan
• Employee Assistance Program
• Flexible Spending Account
• Commuter Benefit Plan
• FIT Tuition Exemption Program
• Qualifying Employer for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program

For a full list of FIT benefits, visit our benefits webpage .

Pay Equity by State Employers

Pursuant to Executive Order 161, no State entity, as defined by the Executive Order, is permitted to ask, or mandate, in any form, that an applicant for employment provide his or her current compensation, or any prior compensation history, until such time as the applicant is extended a conditional offer of employment with compensation. If such information has been requested from you before such time, please contact the Governor's Office of Employee Relations at (518) 474-6988 or via email at [email protected].

Visa Sponsorship

This position may be eligible for visa sponsorship. For any employees who may require sponsorship in order to lawfully work in the United States, FIT reserves complete discretion whether to pursue such sponsorship or to cancel, discontinue, or withdraw such sponsorship at any time.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Statement

FIT is firmly committed to creating an environment that will attract and retain people from a range of backgrounds. FIT is firmly committed to creating a learning and working environment that encourages, utilizes, respects, and appreciates the full expression of every individual's ability. The FIT community fosters its mission and grows because of its rich, pluralistic experience. FIT is committed to prohibiting discrimination, whether on the basis of race, color, creed, age, national origin, immigration or citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, caregiver status, sexual and reproductive health decisions, uniformed service, height, weight, any lawful source of income, status as a victim of domestic violence or as a victim of sex offenses or stalking, whether children are, may be or would be residing with a person or conviction or arrest record, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. FIT is committed to providing equal opportunity in employment, including the opportunity for upward mobility for all qualified individuals. Applications from veterans and persons with disabilities are encouraged. Inquiries regarding FIT's non-discrimination policies may be directed to the Chief Equal Employment Opportunity Officer/Title IX Coordinator, 212 217.3360.

Annual Security Report

The safety and well-being of FIT's students, faculty, staff, and visitors is of paramount importance. Pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, FIT publishes an annual report containing crime statistics and statements of security policy, accessible here: Safety Statistics . A paper copy of the report will be provided upon request by contacting Public Safety's administrative office number at (212) 217-4999.

Physical Requirements and Work Environment

The working conditions for this position will be any combination of the classroom, lab, and/or office space. Certain roles may be required to handle machinery and chemicals. The physical requirement for this position will require occasional sitting, constant standing, occasional bending, frequent walking, and occasionally lifting 10 lbs. or less.

Application Instructions:

In order to be considered for this position, please submit the following documents online:

• Letter of interest clearly indicating your qualifications for the position
• Curriculum Vitae
• Teaching Philosophy Statement
• Research Philosophy Statement
• Unofficial Transcript*
• A minimum of three professional references, including names, titles, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail contact information
• A list of three references for recommendation letters; references may be contacted at a later stage

*Official transcripts are required within the first 30 days of hire. Applicants with foreign degrees must submit a completed credential evaluation comparing their foreign academic accomplishments to standards in the U.S.

Returning Applicants - Login to your FITNYC Careers Account to check your submitted application materials.

This is a full-time, tenure-track position beginning in Fall 2026 . Review of applications will commence immediately and continue until the position is filled.

Please note that due to the high volume of applications we receive, we are unable to contact each applicant individually regarding his or her application status. Additional information about the Fashion Institute of Technology can be found at: .