Humanities Graduate Fellowship, Divided City Sumner StudioLab
We are looking to fill the position of a humanities graduate fellow in community engagement for AY 2022/23. The fellow will help set up the Divided City Sumner StudioLab, a year-long series of public events and programming based at Sumner High School in the Ville neighborhood. The Sumner StudioLab and this fellowship are supported by the Divided City Initiative with funding from the Mellon Foundation.
About the project:
Funded by Mellon’s Divided City Initiative, the Sumner StudioLab is a collaboration between WashU’s Center for the Humanities and Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts in partnership with the Sumner Recovery Board and 4theVille. The first high school for African American students west of the Mississippi, Sumner High School is currently implementing a Sumner Recovery Plan that reimagines both high school curricular offerings and community connections to the school in response to threats of school closure.
Designed in conjunction with the Sumner Recovery Plan, the goal of the Sumner StudioLab is to deepen understandings of Sumner High School as a physical and cultural site through a shared focus on historic preservation and neighborhood community. Through workshops, internships, listening sessions, and courses, the Sumner Studiolab brings together WashU students, Sumner High students, and Ville residents in a Community Hub to collaboratively design and dialogue on Sumner’s historic legacies and promising futures.
Based at Sumner High School in a community hub, the project seeks to engage and collaborate with community organizations, Ville residents, and the broader Sumner community. The Studiolab team includes co-organizers Matt Bernstine (associate director, Sam Fox’s Office for Socially Engaged Practice), Laura Perry (assistant director for research and public engagement, Center for the Humanities), and Michael Allen (senior lecturer, Sam Fox and president, National Building Arts Center). In Fall 2022, Michael Allen will teach the StudioLab course “Historic Preservation, Memory and Community” (cross-listed in Sam Fox and American Culture Studies) to be followed by a second course in Spring 2023 also based at Sumner High School. Other members of the team will include teaching assistants as well as Sumner High School student interns and a community advisory board. The humanities graduate fellow will work closely with this team and will be supervised by Matt Bernstine and Laura Perry.
About the humanities graduate fellowship:
The humanities graduate fellow will assist project organizers in
- Planning, publicizing, and hosting community-engaged events
- Designing and maintaining the Community Hub space at Sumner High School
- Communicating with collaborators and participants in StudioLab events
- Inviting and responding to community feedback on Studiolab programming
- Recruiting WashU students for Studiolab courses
- Recruiting participants on and off campus for StudioLab workshops
- Documenting and critically reflecting on Studiolab programming
The fellowship compensation is $20,000 for the academic year. The fellow is expected to work up to 10 hours per week during the fall and spring semester (until June 2023). The fellow is also expected to arrange transportation to Sumner High School (many meetings and events will be held off campus), which is roughly ~15 minutes by car from WashU’s Danforth Campus. Some events may be held on weekday evenings (as possible) to allow for greater community participation. We also anticipate some (remote) work may be requested during breaks as needed.
Qualifications:
- Enrolled in a WashU humanities PhD program and in good standing
- Interest in community engagement, public humanities and/or urban humanities
- Ability to communicate respectfully and effectively with diverse audiences
- Commitment to reciprocal, ethical approaches to campus-community partnerships
- Interest in mentoring Sumner interns and collaborating with other members of the StudioLab team
- Effective project management and organizational skills
To apply:
Please submit a statement of interest of no more than 500 words as well as your CV to this Box folder by September 2, 2022. Applicants who advance to the interview stage will be notified by September 8, 2022. Contact Laura Perry (plaura@wustl.edu) with any questions.