Call for Applications: Humanities EXCEL Fellowship with Lookout Santa Cruz–Educational Programs Assistant 2025-2026
We encourage work-study and non-work-study students to apply. This internship is only open to undergraduate students with a declared or proposed Humanities major or minor and requires work authorization.
Application Deadline: May 11, 2025
The Humanities Experiential Career Exploration and Learning (EXCEL) Program connects undergraduate Humanities majors and minors with community partners for paid internships. Fellows gain valuable professional experience while exploring potential career paths.
Internship Details
Partner Organization: Lookout Santa Cruz
Location: In person at Lookout’s office, 1523 Pacific Ave. in downtown Santa Cruz
Duration: Academic Year 2025–26 (September–June)
Hours: 10 hours/week
Pay: $20/hour
Mentorship: You will report to Lookout’s Director of Student & Community Engagement. The partner supervisor will delegate tasks and review your work, provide coaching, and help you understand what working in this field is like. You will meet to check in at least once per week
What You’ll Do – Educational Programs Assistant
Lookout Santa Cruz, a digital local news outlet, provides free access to our content for all college and public high school students in Santa Cruz County, funded by local donors. We're seeking an undergraduate student to join our Community and Commerce team as an Educational Program Assistant, supporting our mission to inform and engage the next generation of news consumers.
Working with Lookout’s student and community engagement director, the intern will help bring local news into classrooms through curriculum integration, student engagement programs, and teacher partnerships. This role involves researching, creating, and iterating lesson plans, class visits, and teaching resources to connect local students with trustworthy news.
We’re seeking a creative, digital-savvy intern to help grow and refine this essential education initiative.
- News Quiz Development (30%): Creating news quizzes based on Lookout articles for teachers to use in their classrooms.
- Classroom Engagement & Outreach (30%): Creating class visit offerings and supporting in-person engagement at local high schools. Sending a weekly newsletter to local educators helping them use local news in their classroom.
- Resource Optimization for Educators (20%): Improving the usefulness of our resources for teachers by making them easy to find and easily accessible in different formats.
- Student Voice & Communications Support (10%): Organizing education information, contacts, and communication, helping to set up and support a system for highlighting student voices and updates.
- Student Journalism Scholarship Support (10%): Working to support the Student Journalism Scholarship in marketing, workshops, applications, and publishing.
- Data Tracking & Insights (10%): Tracking and analyzing data to inform future decisions and campaigns.
- Humanities EXCEL Programming: Attend two cohort meetings each quarter when possible and participate in asynchronous Canvas experiential learning reflection.
Eligibility & Qualifications
- You must be a declared or proposed major or minor in a Humanities Division department and have good academic standing. If proposed, declare by June.
- Eligible majors: Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism, Classical Studies, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Feminist Studies, History, Jewish Studies, Language Studies, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, Spanish Studies
- Eligible minors: Black Studies, Classical Studies, East Asian Studies, History of Consciousness, History, Italian Studies, Jewish Studies, Language Studies, Linguistics, Literature, Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Philosophy, Spanish Studies
- You have work authorization (required)
- You can work independently and collaboratively (required)
- You have a passion for education who is comfortable working with high school students, and has an interest in curriculum development.
- You are 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.
- You are 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.
- You are 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 plan to go places in this burgeoning new media landscape.
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
- Updated resume
- 1-page cover letter addressing:
- Why you’re interested in this role and Lookout Santa Cruz
- How does your background and skills apply
- What do you hope to gain from the experience
- For this position, please specify any journalism experience in your cover letter (including journalism-adjacent experiences, like essay-writing, interviewing people for research projects, and creating digital/social media content), or your general interest in journalism.
- Address your letter to the Lookout Santa Cruz team
Review these resume and cover letter resources to ensure you are a strong candidate! For application help, see Humanities Career Engagement.
Questions? Email Kylie Rachwalski at hum-experiential-learning@ucsc.edu
The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Institute, the UCSC Humanities Division, and private donors generously support the Humanities EXCEL Program.
Misconduct Disclosure Requirement:
As a condition of employment, the final candidate who accepts a conditional offer of employment will be required to disclose if they have been subject to any final administrative or judicial decisions within the last seven years determining that they committed any misconduct; received notice of any allegations or are currently the subject of any administrative or disciplinary proceedings involving misconduct; have left a position after receiving notice of allegations or while under investigation in an administrative or disciplinary proceeding involving misconduct; or have filed an appeal of a finding of misconduct with a previous employer.
- “Misconduct” means any violation of the policies or laws governing conduct at the applicant’s previous place of employment, including, but not limited to, violations of policies or laws prohibiting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other forms of harassment, discrimination, dishonesty, or unethical conduct, as defined by the employer. For reference, below are UC’s policies addressing some forms of misconduct:
