Sessional Instructors: Advertising, Faculty of Design, Winter 2025

at  OCAD University

OCAD University acknowledges the ancestral territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabeg and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land on which we live, work and create
OCAD University, Canada’s largest and oldest art and design university, is a vibrant community of bold, curious and compassionate artists, designers and scholars who are imagining and creating a joyful, equitable and sustainable world. The University is an internationally renowned hub for art, design, digital media, research, innovation and creativity, and arts administration. It embraces collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to change-making through art, design-thinking curriculum and research, making OCAD U a local, regional, national and global leader in art and design.
It is an exciting time to join the OCAD U community as the University is at a key stage in its institutional transformation, with the implementation of its Academic and Strategic Plan and guiding principles — driving positive impact; decolonization, indigenization and equity; environmental sustainability; emerging as a vibrant hub; student centered approaches; innovation in learning teaching and research; and financial stewardship.
For courses delivered remotely, faculty will be expected to observe OCAD U’s Guidelines for Remote Delivery, which includes enabling students to successfully complete the course asynchronously.
The Faculty of Design invites applications for the following anticipated course offerings for the Winter term in 2024-25 academic year:
ADVR-2011: COMING TO KNOW THE COMMUNITY (0.5 credits)
(Winter Semester: January 6, 2025 – April 25, 2025, Wednesdays 3:10-6:10pm & Fridays 11:50-2:50pm; Blended)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Contemporary practices in advertising are contextualized through a broader study of media and communication to identify and work with systems of local economies in global contexts. Studio projects build resources for community-oriented work, developing tools to analyze key insights, values, and empathic ways of knowing for diverse audiences and clients. Advertising processes intersect frameworks of Wholistic principles and co-creative methodologies to decolonize design in support of and with community engagement. Through ethnographic methodology, story-telling perspectives, and decolonial theory, this course focuses on relationship-building with key partnerships to foster skills in building agency, care, responsibility, and reciprocity for diverse communities.
ADVR-3010: ADVANCE COPYWRITING (0.5 credits)
(Winter Semester: January 6, 2025 – April 25, 2025, Thursdays 8:30-11:30am; In-Person)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Building on acquired skills and knowledge, advanced communication challenges that focus on clear, consistent, emotionally-rich written expressions as critical advertising campaign elements are created across a range of media. Workshops that investigate the forms and broader communicative aspects of advertising copy, refine processes to enhance effective writing for sponsored media, brand narratives, and public relations. The studio writing environment encourages the writer’s unique voice and style to emerge by sharing the experience and results with a respectful and collaborative community.
ADVR-3012: COMING TO KNOW THE CULTURE (0.5 credits)
(Winter Semester: January 6, 2025 – April 25, 2025, Tuesdays 3:10-6:10pm; In-Person)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Advertising’s history of investing in social change and political activism is explored, with deeper investigation into the cultural conditions, objectives and effectiveness of advertising expressions that support the call for action. Technological environments and tools used to disseminate sponsored content with intent to change society toward a perceived greater good are surveyed. Reflexive projects that foster ethically sensitive creative practices, and intersect issues of national and personal politics, social justice, and environmentalism, with sponsored content promoting positive social change are encouraged. Project results are expected to demonstrate an elevated level of complexity in narrative and media expression.
ADVR-3013: MEDIATED LANDSCAPES (0.5 credits)
(Winter Semester: January 6, 2025 – April 25, 2025, Wednesdays 11:50-2:50pm; In-Person)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Advertising is increasingly pervasive through the limitless channels of media vying for consumer engagement. Mediated Landscapes examines the effects of diverse mediums of communications through a critical, exploratory process of research and creation. The socio-economic dynamics between brands and consumers in physical and digital space are analyzed and investigated using art and design methods such as, prototyping and experimentation. Issues of power, identity, and value in various forms of media are identified in perceived and real landscapes; requiring a decolonial framework of global, diasporic, and Indigenous knowledges to cross-examine the studio process through readings, workshops, and visiting knowledge keepers.
RESPONSIBILITIES: Teaching and teaching-related responsibilities may include but are not limited to: course outline development, studio preparation and delivery inclusive of lectures, critiques, grading, mid-term evaluations and final evaluations/reviews; including responsibility for health & safety and meeting academic and curricular requirements and deadlines.

QUALIFICATIONS:

The successful applicant should have:

• A Bachelor’s degree in graphic design or advertising or relevant discipline and/or equivalent professional/practical experience.
• Outstanding communication skills, and a demonstrated capacity to support and resource independent studio investigations, are essential to teaching at this level.
• A demonstrated commitment to the principles of equity and diversity, and proven ability to work effectively and collegially with a diverse population of students and faculty underpin all academic positions at OCAD U.
• A current body of work within the Advertising professional design and/or academic disciplines as it relates to the course description(s).
• Experience with, and aptitude for highly iterative, process-oriented work without the restriction of fixed outcomes or expectations.
• An asset: two (2) years of teaching experience at the undergraduate level in a related Design discipline.
• Demonstrated leadership and experience in promoting a respectful and inclusive work and learning environment for students, staff, and Faculty.

Additional Skills Considered an Asset:

• A working skillset with Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.) and/or other professional industry standard software
• A demonstrated capacity to support UX and UI design concepts;
• An understanding of AI with ability concerning being able to support student concepts
• An asset: experience teaching remotely (but not required).

TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT: Sessional appointments are fixed-term annual contracts. Sessional compensation includes a per-course pay scale with salary level of $6,871.00 (per 0.5 credit course) plus 7% in lieu of benefits and vacation pay, per the provisions of the Employment Standards Act. These positions are subject to budgetary approval and satisfactory enrolment levels.

Please refer the Job description for details