2023 Fall

2023 Fall

Our Collaborative Cohort Projects employ a team of current Arts graduate students who work with a community partner on a project identified by that partner. Together the student team and their partner organization determine a final approach to the project. The student team divides the work according to their expertise and interests and each person completes a component of the project. Students who complete the project receive an $1800 stipend in exchange for 70 hours of work.

New for Fall 2023, an opportunity to work with the Public Humanities Hub to map public humanities research and research support within the wider UBC-O and UBC-V communities.

Project Description

Public Humanities Hub

The UBC Public Humanities Hub (PHH) fosters and supports collaborative, public-facing Humanities research in Arts, Law, and Education at UBC-Vancouver. PHH is recruiting an interdisciplinary group of graduate students to carry out a mapping project of public humanities research support, research areas and scholars, and related public humanities activities within the landscapes of UBC-Vancouver and UBC-Okanagan. The project will prioritize the fields of:

  • Health Studies (e.g. Applied Science, Nursing, Medicine, Disability Studies, etc.)
  • The Faculties of Education, Law, and Arts
  • The wider UBC-V and UBC-O communities

PHH is particularly interested in scholars, departments, funding initiatives, and programs engaged in what appear to be humanities activities or methodologies in ways that are creative, innovative, and/or publicly engaged. The project team will define the scope of “creative, innovative, and/or publicly engaged” humanities activities for the purpose of this project and include that definition in final project deliverables. The team should deliver results in the form of a written report, utilizing data visualizations, graphics, or other methods they deem best to represent the results of the research. A short, final presentation of results to the PHH leadership team would also be welcome and encouraged.

 

Arts students with interdisciplinary backgrounds or research interests in medicine, health, law, or education are particularly encouraged to apply. Applications from graduate students and post-docs in the Faculty of Arts will be prioritized, but students in Education or Law will not be excluded from consideration. Applications will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis until the deadline.

Position Details

Time commitment: 70 hours per person, including one required onboarding meeting with the Arts Amplifier team and some pre-work.

Compensation: $1800 stipend, to be paid as a lump sum upon completion of the work

Remote: Yes

Eligibility requirements:

  • Current Masters or Doctoral student in the UBC Faculty of Arts. You must not be on leave during the duration of the project in order to receive the stipend.
  • Must be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or hold refugee status in Canada (due to funding restrictions).

Application Form

Please click here to go to the application form

Application deadline: November 28, 4pm. Note: applications will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis until the deadline. 

Questions? Contact us at arts.amplifier@ubc.ca

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Currently underway, the Arts Amplifier has an interdisciplinary team of Arts graduate students working with Writing Short is Hard. Applications for this project are closed.

Project Description

Writing Short is Hard

Letitia Henville, PhD, is a freelance academic editor at shortishard.com. You can find her company’s mission, vision, and values on her website. Letitia is interested in hiring a small team of students to work collaboratively to write content for her blog and newsletter. Some ideas for content include: 

Letitia is also open to your ideas for blog or newsletter content that fits within her business model and that leverages your strengths & expertise. All team members in the CCP would need to work on the same general topic or project, but take different perspectives. Writing for the blog and newsletter needs to be concise (ie, no more than 800 words per piece) and to provide high-value information for readers–that is, info that they can’t find elsewhere online. No experience in writing for the web is required, but enthusiasm is, so please be prepared to tell her what you’re hoping to get out of this work experience.  

To learn more, please RSVP for the Q&A, to be held September 7, 11:30am-12:30pm on Zoom.

2023 Summer

This summer, the Arts Amplifier is running collaborative, cohort-based applied research projects with two partners: Women Transforming Cities and UBC Research Commons.

Each partner will employ a team (or teams) of Arts graduate students who will work on a project identified by that partner. Together the student team and their partner organization will determine a final approach to the project. The student team will divide the work according to their expertise and interests and each person will complete a component of the project.

Register for the Q&A with UBC Research Commons, May 23, 11am on Zoom

Register for the Q&A with Women Transforming Cities, May 24, 1pm on Zoom

Project Descriptions

Women Transforming Cities

Women Transforming Cities (WTC) is a grassroots organization based in Vancouver that works alongside equity-seeking genders to dismantle intersecting systems of oppression and transform where we live into places where everyone can belong, participate, and thrive. They build participation and power at the local government level for people historically excluded from civic processes and decision-making to radically shift power to gender-marginalized people through a feminist, intersectional lens. 

One of the ways they do this is through City Action - a series of workshop offerings focused on civic literacy & education. The general target audience for these workshops are women and gender-diverse people who face systemic exclusion from civic processes due to intersecting identity factors and are connected to community organizations across BC. 

WTC is seeking a cohort of researchers, digital designers, and writers to join the team and create downloadable takeaway resources for those who may not have access to our workshops. The materials will include PDFs with consolidated resources, video content, and more.

Eligibility: WTC is an intersectional feminist, anti-oppressive, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-neoliberal organization and they are looking for values-aligned applicants. Priority will be given to applications from Indigenous peoples, Immigrant and Refugee people, Black people, racialized folks, women, girls, trans, non-binary, genderqueer, and Two-Spirit people.

To learn more, please RSVP for the Q&A, to be held 1pm May 24 on Zoom.

UBC Research Commons

UBC Research Commons is a communal space on the 4th and 5th floors of Koerner library that includes a Digital Scholarship Computer Lab and provides workshops and expertise on Data Analysis, Citation Management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and more. They embrace both new and traditional exploratory scholarship and provide access to services and expertise for the advancement of research.

They have two projects for which they are seeking student teams:

Digital Humanities skillsets are increasingly required for participation in multimedia academic work (i.e. digital theses). The first project aims to collect and develop training resources for a base digital literacy skill set informed by the local context at UBC.  This project will build on topics identified by The Carpentries, the Digital Humanities Literacies Guide, Digital Literacies as defined by the MLA Guide, and areas identified by UBC’s Digital Scholarship Librarian. The goals of this project are to 1) create a resource (i.e. spreadsheet) of core literacies to be addressed for each of the areas identified by the team; and 2) create GitHub pages using the UBC Library Research Commons workshops template (see example workshops here). If there is time or scope some or all members of the team could deliver workshops using the developed content. Students interested in this project do not need to have a pre-existing knowledge of the Digital Humanities or GitHub, they will be offered training in core concepts by the UBC Library Research Commons. 

Digital Scholarship in the Arts has a strong presence at UBC, but there is no consolidated location where this work is showcased. The second project team will identify, collect, and present projects that reflect Digital Scholarship in the Arts and develop a WordPress site through UBC CMS to showcase this work. Students interested in this project do not need to have pre-existing web development skills and will be offered training in creating a web showcase by the UBC Library Research Commons. If there is time or scope some or all members of the team could explore the possibility of physically showcasing digital projects in the Digital Scholarship Lab and organizing an event inviting the showcase participants to present their work in an informal meetup.

To learn more, please RSVP for the Q&A, to be held 11am May 23 on Zoom.

Position Details

Number of openings: up to 4 positions with Women Transforming Cities, up to 8 positions with UBC Research Commons.

Time commitment: 70 hours per person, including three required onboarding meetings with the Arts Amplifier team and host organization, to be completed before August 25, 2023.

Compensation: $1800 stipend, to be paid as a lump sum in August 2023

Remote: Yes

Eligibility requirements:

  • Masters or Doctoral student in the UBC Faculty of Arts. You must not be on leave during the duration of the project in order to receive the stipend.
  • Must be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or hold refugee status in Canada (due to funding restrictions).

Application Form

Please click here to go to the application form

Application deadline: Wednesday May 31 at 9am.

2022 Summer

This summer, the Arts Amplifier is running one collaborative, cohort-based applied research project. This project will employ a team of Arts masters or doctoral students who will work with a community partner on a project identified by that partner.

Each student team will meet with their community partner to determine the final approach taken on the project. You will divide the work according to their expertise and interests, and each person will complete a component of the project. The partner organization, as well as Amplifier staff, will provide ongoing mentorship and support.

Project Description

Women Transforming Cities (WTC) is a grassroots organization based in Vancouver working alongside equity-seeking genders to dismantle intersecting systems of oppression and transform where we live into places where everyone can belong, participate, and thrive. One such project that WTC leads is the Women Friendly Cities Challenge (WFCC): a living library of Wise Practices from around the world that helps make cities more gender-inclusive, and thus better for all.

To learn more, and to contribute to the shaping of the project, please RSVP for the April 12th Q&A.

Position Details

Number of openings: 5 positions

Time commitment: 70 hours per person, including three required onboarding meetings with the Arts Amplifier team

Compensation: $1800 stipend, to be paid as a lump sum in August 2022

Remote: Yes

Eligibility requirements: masters or doctoral student in the UBC Faculty of Arts. You must not be on leave during the duration of the project in order to receive the stipend.

Application to Participate Form

Please click here to go to the application form

Application deadline: Tuesday April 19th at 9am.

Why the Arts Amplifier Runs Q&As with Employers

by Letitia Henville, PhD — Project Lead, Arts Amplifier
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We all know how applying for a job works: you come across a job description online, you submit a resume and cover letter, and maybe you get an interview. This is the normal way of doing things. But is it a good way?

There’s an oft-told but rarely verified piece of anecdata that says that men will apply for jobs if they meet 60% of the eligibility criteria, but women won’t apply unless they meet 100%. I’ve never been able to find the source for this claim, which neatly omits any consideration of intersectionality or gender diversity, but as a coordinator in the UBC Arts Co-op program, I’ve regularly seen graduate students rule themselves out of applying for roles I know they could do. And, honestly, I’m tired of it.

So when I started up the Arts Amplifier last year, I knew I didn’t want to keep reproducing processes that—despite being normal—I’m not persuaded are good.

For many of the paid work experiences we offer in the Arts Amplifier—notably our paid internships and collaborative cohort projects—we don’t circulate a written job description. Instead, we invite employers to join us for an online question-and-answer session, which you’ll have seen advertised in our newsletter as a Q&A.

While hosting Q&As, I’ve had students ask me, “can you please post the link to the job description?” That question is based on the flawed assumption that there is a job description already in writing, somewhere. We invite employers to speak to you before they write a job description because we want you to shape the scope of the role.

Employer Q&As in the Arts Amplifier

In Arts Amplifier Q&As, we ask our employers to take 5-10 minutes to tell you a bit more about their organization and the role they have in mind, focusing on the goals they’d like to achieve. The rest of the 45- to 60-minute Q&A is taken up with interactive chit-chat between the employer, the Arts Amplifier staff, and student attendees.

We invite employers to come in and chat with you before they have a written job description because we want you to have the chance to advocate for yourself, begin to build a relationship with the employer, and see how open they are to the ways in which you might frame your expertise.

By interviewing the employer, you can find out how flexible or inflexible they are in their thinking about a particular job. You can ask for yourself whether knowing how to use a particular piece of software is something that can be picked up in the early days of a job, or whether it’s something you have to be comfortable using from Day 1. By asking good questions, you can determine if you’d be a competitive applicant for the role, and write a better job application for it.

We know that this is an unconventional process—that you’re used to looking at job applications, determining if you’re qualified, and then thinking through whether it’ll be worth your time to apply. We’re doing things differently because we think that traditional job application processes don’t serve our student population well—that too many of you would mistakenly exclude yourself from applying for a job that you may actually be great at.

How to Make the Most of an Employer Q&A

  1. Join the event from a place where you can unmute yourself. This is a question-and-answer session, not a lecture, and being able to ask questions with your own voice will help you to stand out to the employer. They want to hear your thoughts about their proposed project.
  2. Turn your camera on, if you are able to. If you’re planning on applying for the job, it’s a good idea to show your engagement to the employer. It can be hard for some people to speak to a wall of white names on black backgrounds, and so turning your camera on will be a favour to the employer.
  3. Use the chat feature, especially if you aren’t able to turn your camera on or unmute yourself. Even if you’re not asking questions, showing your engagement in the chat is a way to demonstrate your interest to the employer.
  4. Interview them. Look up the speaker and their organization ahead of time, and think about what you’d like to know about their work. Don’t be afraid to ask critical, analytical questions. Many of our employers have advanced degrees, and will appreciate questions that show you’re thinking deeply about their work.

 

Learn about upcoming Q&As on the Arts Amplifier Events page, and view past Q&As on our Past Events page.

2021 Fall

This fall the Arts Amplifier is running three collaborative, cohort-based applied research projects. Each project will employ a small team of Arts PhD students who will work with a community partner on a project identified by that partner.

Each student team will meet with their community partner to determine the final approach taken on the project. The students will divide the work according to their expertise and interests, and each person will complete a component of the project. The partner organization, as well as Amplifier staff, will provide ongoing mentorship and support.

Project Descriptions

CityStudio Vancouver

CityStudio Vancouver is looking for one or two small teams of PhD students who will work together to address a research question for the City of Vancouver. Want to be involved in a City of Vancouver project? RSVP for CityStudio's Q&A session.

Eligibility: PhD students in the Faculty of Arts. Open to Canadian citizens, Permanent residents and students with refugee status, and currently awaiting funding confirmation for international students.

The Reach Gallery Museum

The Reach Gallery Museum is looking for up to four bilingual (Punjabi/English) Arts graduate students to work collaboratively with The Reach’s curatorial team to translate selected parts of the Punjabi Patrika newspaper archive. The Reach believes that issues that tend to be racialized in their community (real estate, gang violence, etc.) have been reported on qualitatively differently in English versus Punjabi news media; however, they need support from researchers who can read Gurmukhi script to explore this suspicion and evaluate the content of the archive.

Eligibility: Masters or PhD students in the Faculty of Arts of any citizenship.

Friends for Life

Friends for Life is looking for up to four Arts graduate students to work collaboratively with their leadership team to develop an online resource outlining the history of Friends for Life and its role in the early history of AIDS activism and organizing in Vancouver. This resource will likely be developed through a combination of primary source research, including: reading through transcribed interviews from the "HIV in My Day" oral history project, conducting additional interviews with long-time clients and volunteers, and consulting publicly available documents through the Vancouver archives on AIDS activism and history. They are looking for at least one student with web design and development skills to help with building the online interface.

Eligibility: All PhD students in the Faculty of Arts are eligible to apply for these positions. We have secured funding for Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and those with refugee status to take part in this paid work, and are awaiting confirmation of funding for international students.

Position Details

Number of hours per student: 70 hours, with schedules to be decided between the student teams and their community partner

Compensation: $1800 (less income taxes, EI, CPP, WCB, and +4% vacation pay) as a Graduate Academic Assistant appointment

Remote: TBD with each community partner and students

Eligibility requirements: Active* graduate students (not on leave) in the Faculty of Arts and residing in Canada for the duration of the project. Please see above for more specific eligibility requirements for each project.

Note: These projects are contingent on external funding.

Information Sessions

Stay tuned for future Live Q&As on our events page. If you have questions, please email arts.amplifier@ubc.ca.

Application Details

Applications closed on Thursday, August 19th 2021.

2021 Summer

This summer the Arts Amplifier is running two collaborative, cohort-based applied research projects. Each project will employ a team of four Arts PhD students who will work with a community partner on a project identified by that partner.

Each student team will meet with their community partner to determine the final approach taken on the project. The students will divide the work according to their expertise and interests, and each person will complete a component of the project. The partner organization, as well as Amplifier staff, will provide ongoing mentorship and support.

Project Descriptions

BC Forest Discovery Centre is looking for Educational Developers to support the development of resource packages that can be used as educational material for schools. This work will include: museum interpretation, heritage preservation, digital design, and the development of online and printed learning materials.

Member Services office at the Squamish Nation is looking for Applied Researchers to conduct an environmental scan investigating mental health. This work will include: conducting interviews and surveys, data collection and analysis, a literature review, and developing a report and recommendations.

Position Details

Number of openings: 4 positions per project

Number of hours per student: 70 hours, with schedules to be decided between the student teams and their community partner

Compensation: $1800 stipend

Remote: Yes

Eligibility requirements: Active* PhD students in the Faculty of Arts who hold Canadian citizenship

Note: These projects are contingent on external funding.

* PhD students must not be on leave during the duration of the project in order to receive the stipend.

Information Sessions

Have questions for Squamish Nation or BC Forest Discovery Centre?

Watch the info sessions available on our Past Events page to learn more. If you have more questions, please email arts.amplifier@ubc.ca.

Application to Participate Form

Applications closed on May 24th at 11:59pm

Cultivating Intellectual Self-Confidence for Career Success

A professional association for people with PhDs in History, the American Historical Association (AHA) lists “intellectual self-confidence” among its Career Diversity Five Skills, or the five skills necessary to career success, whether inside or outside academia. The AHA defines intellectual self-confidence as the ability to “think flexibly and creatively about how one’s existing skills and knowledge can be applied to a problem at hand, to switch between projects as needed, and to learn about new topics and methods as needed.” Basically, it is the capacity to adapt efficiently and effectively to challenges as they arise.

Why confidence can feel elusive for grad students

Intellectual self-confidence is one of those “soft skills” that many graduate students hone almost without realizing it. In fact, this skill can be so intuitive that many grad students don’t even recognize it as a skill. Add to that the fact that graduate study demands intense focus on narrowly defined subject matter in order to develop specialized expertise and many graduate students can end up feeling exactly the opposite of intellectually confident. Instead, seeing their knowledge as too niche to have any meaningful off-campus application—what job could possibly value your encyclopedic knowledge of 17th century astronomical charts? How could you possibly find personal fulfillment in a job that didn’t value the knowledge that you have so painstakingly cultivated?

But, perhaps this is the wrong way to look at it.

Recognizing your capacity for career confidence

Graduate study teaches you to recognize what you don’t know and to fill those knowledge gaps through research and learning. It teaches you to be flexible and adaptable in your thinking. You can use these same skills to build a footing and find confidence in any workplace. In any new job, whether as an assistant professor or a communications manager, you will encounter new concepts, relationships, structures, and skillsets. Being able to think creatively about how to use what you know to respond to these challenges is key to career success. You’ll draw on your intellectual self-confidence wherever you work.

Practicing intellectual self-confidence

Intellectual self-confidence is not a skill you master. It’s a skill best practiced regularly and often, and the best way to do this is to try new things—give yourself the chance to work in different ways, on different topics, or with different people. Use your years as a graduate student to take on challenges: look for opportunities that take you outside the narrow focus of your scholarly expertise, work with new communities and people; ask questions and see what you can offer.

And, if you feel like you need direction in figuring out your path to intellectual self-confidence, make an appointment with Arts Amplifier staff to talk about what kinds of opportunities might be right for you.

Create a Project

If you have an idea for a project that you want to make happen in the world, or if you want to design your own internship experience, please tell us about your dream, idea, or project.

Find a Paid Internship

If you want to learn about our paid internship opportunities for Summer 2021, please check out our careers info.