Biology Faculty Candidate Search

We would like every applicant to have access to the conventions and expectations that we will apply during our review process. Please review the information on this page to learn more about the Biology Department at Colgate University and what we are looking for in your application materials.

Colgate is a small liberal arts college, despite having “university” in the name. We are an almost entirely undergraduate institution, committed to a rigorous and engaging liberal arts curriculum. Thus, in addition to choosing a major, our students take a range of classes across the curriculum. Our students work at a very high caliber, and they expect to be challenged. Colgate takes the liberal arts education model very seriously indeed, which translates into an emphasis on intellectual inquiry, rather than practical professional training. We all see ourselves as researchers, and we bring our scholarly interests into the classroom with us.

You can find additional information about Colgate’s support of our faculty and information about Central New York, where we are situated on our Introducing Colgate website.

As biology spans a wide range of ideas, our classes explore concepts across cellular and molecular biology, genetics, cancer and developmental biology, microbiology, systems biology, organismal and evolutionary biology, terrestrial and aquatic ecology, plant and animal physiology, and animal behavior. Students are broadly exposed to these ideas in our 100- and 200- level courses and then specialize in our 300- and 400- level elective courses. Throughout the curriculum, students engage with the scientific literature and the scientific process. Students in the Biology Department may choose from four different majors: Biology, Molecular Biology, Environmental Biology, and Marine & Freshwater Science. Many students from other majors and programs are active participants in our courses. 

The Biology department engages students in research in both classroom and faculty laboratories. All students are required to complete one semester of research during their senior year by taking a senior research tutorial (BIOL474 - 489), but many of our students start research earlier during the academic year or as part of our summer research program. We have robust facilities and resources that enable cutting-edge research, and our faculty actively publish and write grants to further support their research. The Biology department is housed in the Ho Science Center and Olin Hall, the latter of which has recently been renovated to provide state-of-the-art classroom, laboratory and collaborative spaces. 

Many of our students study abroad during their time at Colgate University. In addition, many of our faculty lead Colgate Study Groups including the Bethesda Biomedical Research Study Group, which allows students to earn college credit for conducting research at the NIH during the academic year. 

Additional information about our faculty, our curriculum, our facilities, student research opportunities, and off-campus study can be found in the menu to the left.

Application Materials

For our visiting assistant professor positions in Ecology and Microbiology, we are asking for a cover letter, your curriculum vitae, unofficial transcripts, the names of three references, a teaching statement. All materials should be written in your own voice and avoid using Generative AI. 

Cover Letter

Your cover letter should introduce yourself as a scholar and as a teacher. It should be 1-2 pages single-spaced. Your cover letter should briefly introduce us to your research area and teaching interests/background. Additionally, your cover letter should connect your approaches to teaching to a predominantly undergraduate liberal arts environment. The goal of the cover letter is to spotlight the most significant aspects of your work, so that we understand your career thus far as you see it, and how you see yourself connecting with our advertised position here at Colgate.

Curriculum Vitae

Your CV should list all of your education and any academic appointments you have held, with dates, as well as your publications. If you have held non-academic positions that you consider relevant or that might help us to understand your intellectual trajectory, feel free to include them, but don’t feel obligated. For publications, please include any works in progress that you have started drafting. You are welcome to include significant conference presentations as well. If your publications include student co-authors you have mentored, it can be helpful to indicate those. Also, we would appreciate a list of any classes you have taught, with instructor of record vs. teaching assistant clearly indicated. At the end of your CV, please list the names of your recommenders, including their titles, institutions, and email addresses.

Names of References

At the initial application, we don’t need reference letters, but we would like the names of your recommenders at the end of your CV, as described above, and in the appropriate section on the Interfolio application. If we would like to see letters, we’ll contact you, so that you can request them from your references. We do recommend that you ask your recommenders to draft their reference letters, so that the turnaround time for requests can be quick.

Teaching Statement

Typically, your statement will be 2 - 3 pages, single-spaced. We’re looking for evidence that you have thought deeply about teaching and are committed to being a successful teacher and mentor at a predominantly undergraduate small liberal arts college. You can provide this evidence by addressing some of the following questions. You should not feel compelled to address all of the questions.

  • What elective courses would you feel best prepared to teach? Would you be willing/able to teach a laboratory/field component for any of these electives? What ideas do you have for teaching across our curriculum? 
  • What are your goals for students? You might pick a course and explain what you hope students will take from it. How will you design your teaching of the course to make that happen?
  • In addition to teaching in biology, we expect our faculty to teach courses to a general audience of students in our Liberal Arts Core Curriculum. Most scientists teach in the Core: Sciences component, where the main objective is to teach first- and second-year students about the scientific process and how science interacts with society. What ideas do you have for teaching in this Core component?
  • Describe a teaching experience you’ve had. What did you do that you were proud of? What did you learn from the experience, and what would you do differently in the future? How would that teaching be similar to or different from your teaching at Colgate?
  • What have you learned about teaching, outside of your direct experience as a teacher? What effective instructional practices did you observe when you were a student? What are you particularly interested in trying at Colgate?
  • Teaching can also occur in laboratory settings. How have your experiences mentoring students in the research lab and/or in a classroom laboratory influenced how you approach teaching?

We recognize that you cannot include all of this information in a statement of reasonable length, so we encourage you to focus on what matters most to you. While a separate DEI statement is not required, your teaching philosophy should describe how you engage students from diverse backgrounds. Also, feel free to write about things that are important to you but that we have not included on this list. Above all, we are interested in understanding who you are as a teacher and scholar.