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Job Description: Are you passionate about the arts and/or humanities? Would you like to learn about and contribute your ideas on how engaging with your local community can help students build skills and knowledge to prepare for life after graduation? Join a team of faculty members from Carleton, Macalester, and St. Olaf as we work on a year-long project titled “Building a Community Engagement Credential Program for Students in the Arts and Humanities,” funded by a grant from Associated Colleges of the Midwest. One Community Arts and Humanities Student Project Collaborator from each of our three campuses will be selected to join the project team. Each collaborator will commit to working with us during January-May 2025 and September-December 2025. Students from the three member campuses will interact with one another, creating cross-campus networks of belonging. Students from underrepresented backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Project Overview: Our project will seek to create opportunities for faculty, staff, and students at three Minnesota liberal arts colleges to connect with community consultants and collaborators in order to gather ideas about the feasibility of designing a skills-based career preparation pathway program for arts and humanities students that will be mutually beneficial for all participants. This program would provide participating student fellows with a framework for exploring career and vocation through experiential learning and guided reflection, and could potentially result in a credential or certificate recognizing the skills developed. During the grant period and as part of the future skills-based career pathway program, students from the three member-campuses will interact with one another, creating cross-campus networks of belonging. Project leads will gather tools from guest artists, storytellers, and speakers who use arts and humanities approaches to facilitate interactions around the project theme of “Belonging.” Project leads will aim to consult with their respective campus Community Engagement offices, career and vocation centers, and already established credential and fellows programs to learn more about the programs that are offered or developed on our campuses; reflect on ways and practices that would contribute to creating an effective and sustainable skills-based career preparation pathway program focused on community engagement for students in the arts and humanities; and explore the feasibility of such a project on each campus. The Student Collaborators will be responsible for the following activities: Active participation in a total of five virtual meetings with project leads, staff members, and community partners in February, March, April, May, and September 2025. Student Collaborators will bring student voices to these meetings, along with reflections on their community engagement experiences during the project period. Discussions will center on four key topics: a. The structure needed for a viable and effective skills-based career preparation pathway centered on community engagement, b. how arts/humanities tools and practices might be integrated into such a program, c. the types of activities that should be required for fellows’ certification, if certification is deemed valuable and feasible, and d. the potential benefits for community partners. Document their individual participation in two community events of their choice (on or off-campus) by taking notes, interviewing event organizers/presenters, and submitting reflections on these experiences to post on the project website. Attend an in-person gathering with project partners in late May 2025. This dinner gathering will bring together collaborators in a shared physical space to reflect on project progress. The meeting will include a hands-on arts/humanities activity, fostering community among participants and offering opportunities to advance collaborative efforts. Actively participate in and provide feedback on a workshop led by a local arts organization in Fall 2025 connected to a Russian Studies course at Macalester or a music course at St. Olaf. These activities will introduce students to arts experiences focused on themes of belonging and will be structured to test the program’s framework and developed material. Student project collaborators will help shape the skills-based career preparation pathway program by participating in the experiences, responding to reflective prompts, and providing feedback. Prepare written reflections on their experiences in March, May, and October 2025, and discuss these with the other two student collaborators before submitting to the project team leads. Prepare summaries of their reflections to post on the project website.
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