Application deadline: October 18, 2023
The Humanities Institute is excited to announce a new Undergraduate Public Fellowship opportunity for Humanities students at UC Santa Cruz to work with Lookout Santa Cruz. THI’s Public Fellowships connect students in the Humanities to projects in the community, with the aim of mutually benefiting students and community organizations. The program provides undergraduate students with hands-on training and professional experience and is available to students who are declared majors and/or minors of a department in the Humanities Division at UCSC.
About Lookout Santa Cruz: Lookout Santa Cruz is a digital media site whose fundamental mission is to serve Santa Cruz county with a high standard of news, information and community engagement. We’re an unusual news organization. We’re homegrown, modern and digital-only — and committed to community betterment. Our mission: to help make Santa Cruz County a better place for all who live here. We do that in all kinds of ways, led by deep, nonpartisan, trustworthy reporting of local news and information and including lots of community events and forums, as well as our impactful student programs.
Job Description: Educational Program Assistant at Lookout Santa Cruz
Serving trustworthy local news and information to today’s students and tomorrow’s voting citizens is a key part of Lookout’s mission. Lookout Santa Cruz offers free access to our content to all of Santa Cruz County’s college and public high school students, paid for by donors. We are looking for an undergraduate student to serve as an educational program assistant to creatively support and advance this important work.
The Educational Program Assistant will work directly with Lookout’s student and community engagement director, as part of the Community and Commerce team, the group responsible for breaking new ground in mission-directed, community-centered business development.
Our student engagement plan has begun providing access to our content to local students. We now move into the engagement phase, drawing in students with a variety of programs, curriculum integration and showcasing student voices. We also know that the key way to engage students in local news is to work directly with teachers and integrate content into classrooms. This assistant will help research, create, implement, communicate and iterate lesson plans, class visits and resources for teachers and professors across the county.
We’re currently looking for a smart, savvy, digital-minded intern to help us keep imagining, building and iterating the education portion of this exciting new local news model.
Primary duties include:
- 20% Creating news quizzes based on Lookout articles for teachers to use in their classrooms.
- 20% Creating class visit offerings and supporting in-person engagement at local high schools.
- 10% Improving the usefulness of our resources for teachers by making them easy to find and easily accessible in different formats.
- 10% Organizing education information, contacts and communication, helping to set up and support a system for highlighting student voices and updates.
- 10% Working to support the Student Journalism Scholarship in marketing, workshops, applications and publishing.
- 10% Tracking and analyzing data to inform future decisions and campaigns.
- 10% Participating in web management and updating Lookout’s robust online platform.
- 10% Helping lead student engagement activities at both UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College, actively bringing students into the news of the day and encouraging active involvement in their communities.
What we’re looking for in a candidate:
Someone with a passion for education who is comfortable working with high school students and has an interest in curriculum development.
A creative problem-solver who is solutions-oriented. This is crucial to Lookout’s culture and plays an important role in our decision-making process.
A detail-oriented team player who enjoys an array of projects. Assignments will range from class talks and curriculum development to digital platform management, communication and analytics management.
A self-motivated individual with great communication. You have identified the things that drive you — and sometimes wake you up in the middle of the night — and you are planning to go places in this burgeoning new media landscape.
You are a declared major or minor in a department in the Humanities Division and in good academic standing (required).
Bonus points for…
- Bilingual English/Spanish
- Experience working with high school students
- Experience with curriculum development
- Experience with analytics tools and key metrics/KPIs
- Expertise and ideas in TikTok, Facebook and Instagram best practices
- Knowledge of web development and production
- Familiarity with video production and photo editing
How to apply:
Apply by submitting your resume with a short cover letter (no more than one page) answering these questions: Why this job? Why you? Why now?
A tip for writing this cover letter is to consider how this position will further your undergraduate career as well as your professional career once you have completed your education. Feel free to be creative here. Work in the Public Humanities does not have a rigid framework and innovation and the ability to adapt is a key component.
Once the application closes on 10/18, there will be an in-person interview process with selected candidates throughout October, with official duties beginning in November 2023.
Students should apply via Handshake using job number # 8230519.
Note that there are two different THI Undergraduate Public Fellowships at Lookout Santa Cruz this year. Information about the Editorial Fellow, Audience Engagement position is available here.
Please email any questions to Kylie Rachwalski, Experiential Learning Coordinator in the Humanities Division, at hum-experiential-learning@ucsc.edu.
THI’s 2023-2024 Undergraduate Public Fellowships are generously supported by the Helen and Will Webster Foundation.