We are looking for recent graduates who want to join our department as a junior teacher, already starting November 1st 2020. Your .8 FTE - contract would run for 10 months until end of August 2021, with the potential of extension for another 3 years. As a junior-teacher you will be mainly involved in teaching in our bachelor programme Communication Science, which has both an English and a Dutch specialisation. Project-based learning and active teaching methods are key in our programme. Contact between lecturers and students is important to us. Your duties

• act as a tutor for bachelor students
• prepare and supervise seminars and tutorials in several courses within our programmes and supervise bachelor thesis
• grade papers and prepare exams
• carry out coordination and administrative tasks for the benefit of education within our programmes
• participate in development and innovation teams and projects on educational innovation

• master’s degree in communication science or related field
• affinity with teaching and interest in innovating and improving academic education  
• good research skills, as evidenced for example by a master thesis
• be able to work well together within a team of teachers
• good oral and written skills in both Dutch and English

Fixed-term contract: 3 months.

A challenging position in a socially involved organization. On full-time basis the remuneration amounts to a minimum gross monthly salary of € 2,790 (scale 10)
and a maximum €4,402 (scale 10), depending on your education and experience. The job profile is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for at least 0.8 FTE.

The initial employment contract will affect a period of 3 months (approbation period), and then run for another 7 months to cover 10 months in total. Afterwards, it might be extended to a maximum of another 3 years. The extension depends on various (external) circumstances, such as student numbers, staff development and performance.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as:

• a maximum of 41 days of annual leave based on full-time employment
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• solid pension scheme (ABP)
• contribution to commuting expenses
• a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge
• discounts on collective insurances (healthcare- and car insurance)

The ambition of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is clear: to contribute to a better world through outstanding education and ground-breaking research. We strive to be a university where personal development and commitment to society play a leading role. A university where people from different disciplines and backgrounds collaborate to achieve innovations and to generate new knowledge. Our teaching and research encompass the entire spectrum of academic endeavour – from the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences through to the life sciences and the medical sciences.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is home to more than 26,000 students. We employ over 4,600 individuals. The VU campus is easily accessible and located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, a truly inspiring environment for teaching and research.

Diversity
We are an inclusive university community. Diversity is one of our most important values. We believe that engaging in international activities and welcoming students and staff from a wide variety of backgrounds enhances the quality of our education and research. We are always looking for people who can enrich our world with their own unique perspectives and experiences.

Faculty of Social Sciences
The Faculty of Social Sciences examines the major social problems of our time from multiple perspectives. From bullying at school to dealing with transnational immigration, from the rise of populist politicians to creating a self-reliant society. Only at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam you will find all the academic disciplines needed to understand these 'wicked problems': alongside the traditional disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and politics, we also research and teach the new social sciences such as communication science and management & organization science. We do not settle for easy answers in our teaching and research. Our researchers and students are critical thinkers and doers who work together to devise surprising solutions to the problems of today.

Working at the Faculty of Social Sciences means working with colleagues from a range of academic disciplines in an inspiring and personal work and study environment with excellent research facilities. We employ more than 250 staff members, and we are home to around 2,500 students.
About our department
Over the past decade, the scientific field of Communication Science has changed profoundly due to the continuous emergence of new media technologies and the rise of a media-saturated digital society, new empirical research methods, and new dynamic communication routes. The department of Communication Science at the VU Amsterdam (see our staff here) responds to these major trends with an educational program (BA/MA) that teaches Communication Science within a “digital society” framework, and that trains related skills (e.g., on data and computational methods) and knowledge (e.g., on digital marketing) using timely and innovative teaching methods. The department also responds to these major trends by maintaining a pointed and forward-looking research program that is strategically focusing on an examination of Communication Choices, Content and Consequences (CCCC). The department is in a strong position in the field because it has clearly focused on newly emerging communication technologies and solid empirical methods ever since its start in 2003. The department maintains particular expertise in adapting psychology and computer sciences to the study of media. Researchers within the CCCC program are currently organized into three evolving research areas crucial to the discipline of Communication Science: Media Monitoring (focusing on computational methods, mostly in a political communication domain), Media Psychology (including work on experience and effects of Social Robotics and Virtual Reality), and Social Media (focusing on social media, mostly in a marketing, PR, and organizational communication context). The department has been ranked at a strong #10 of all departments/universities worldwide in the prestigious 2020 Shanghai ranking, the CCCC research program received very strong review scores in the last assessment, and the teaching program was positively evaluated and accredited in the last assessment (2018/2019).