Humanities EXPLORE Program: Faculty Call for Applications

Application Deadline: Monday, October 28, 2024

Note: This application is on InfoReady

The Humanities Division Student Achievement Team seeks applications for faculty in the Humanities Division to participate in the Humanities Experiential Learning Opportunities in Research (EXPLORE) Program . Successful applicants will be awarded funds to hire and mentor undergraduate students with a major or minor in a humanities department to work on faculty-led research projects.

This paid research opportunity for students may be offered quarterly starting at some point between Winter Quarter 2025 and Spring Quarter 2026, including Summer Sessions. This call for applications is open to all active Senate faculty with appointments in the Humanities Division to apply for undergraduate student funding.

We define undergraduate research as a scaffolded inquiry or an investigation conducted under the guidance of a faculty mentor that makes an impactful intellectual, community-engaged, or creative contribution.

About Humanities EXPLORE: Undergraduate students apply on Handshake for EXPLORE research positions with faculty that align with their skills and academic expertise. Faculty interview and select Fellows who earn an hourly wage and contribute at least 10 hours/week to the project. Humanities Student Achievement and THI support EXPLORE Fellows through quarterly workshops and asynchronous programming that empowers them to actively engage with support networks (faculty mentors, staff, peers, and resources) and achieve goals to grow as researchers. Humanities EXLORE Fellows will showcase their contributions to the project and reflect on their experience at the end of each academic year.

Recruiting EXPLORE Fellows: To promote equity and accessibility to these paid opportunities, faculty must utilize an open call to recruit students for at least 14 days. The Humanities Student Achievement team will support the administrative recruitment and application processes. The interview and selection process will be during November 2024, with researchers hired by December 14, 2024, to begin the week of January 6, 2025. If your project will start in Spring 2025 or later, we will post the position(s) and hire one quarter in advance. Eligible students must be a declared or proposed major or minor from a department in the Humanities Division and have work authorization.

Application Questions

1. Overview: Briefly describe your research project. Is it a team-based public humanities project? Archival research? Oral history collection? Text-based research?
2. Undergraduate Research Assistant Responsibilities: Please describe what students will work on and/or the learning activities students might engage in. Please include a breakdown of anticipated job duties in weighted percentages that total 100%. Please include specific tasks and responsibilities under each category.
3. Developing Transferrable Skills: Please describe which humanistic core competencies your project and mentorship will provide throughout this scaffolded experience. What transferable skills will researchers gain, and how?
4. Qualifications for success: What skills, knowledge, or abilities are you seeking in a researcher? How much experience is required, and what will you train students on? The starting salary for students is $18/hour and can increase with experience.
5. Number of Researchers: How many undergraduate research assistant positions would you like to create for your project?
6. Start Date: Please indicate which quarter the opportunity can begin during the 2024-2026 academic years, including Summer Sessions ‘25 & ‘26.
7. Length of Position: How many quarters of undergraduate research assistance are you seeking?
8. Time commitment: What is the weekly time commitment (in hours) needed for the project? There should be at least 10 hours of work each week and at most 20 hours/week per student.
9. Additional Resources Needed: If your project needs extra resources, such as equipment or travel, please explain that here. If you have questions about developing a resource proposal, please contact Amy Bruinooge.
10. Comments: Anything else you’d like to share?

Mentorship Requirements

Awardees will be required to meet with the EXPLORE Fellows at least twice each month to check in, delegate tasks, and provide feedback to the researchers. Awardees will be expected to provide progress reports in June 2025 and at the end of the award term on each student’s participation in the project, which may include evidence, published pieces, photos, or written updates. By participating in the Humanities EXPLORE Program as a faculty mentor, awardees will be asked to evaluate the researchers and share testimony for Mellon grant reporting, which may be collected through a survey.

How To Apply

Complete applications are due by Monday, October 28.

This application is on InfoReady:
https://humanities-ucsc.infoready4.com/#freeformCompetitionDetail/1954055

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The Dean will decide on awardees in consultation with the Student Achievement team. Awardees will be announced by November 1, 2024

Questions? Contact Asst. Director of Experiential Learning Kylie Rachwalski at hum-experiential-learning@ucsc.edu or book a 30-minute consultative appointment here.

The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Institute, and the UCSC Humanities Division generously support the Humanities EXPLORE Program.