The Ginsberg Center cultivates and stewards mutually beneficial partnerships between communities and the University of Michigan to advance social change for the public good. We engage students, faculty, and community members in learning together through community service and civic participation. Graduate Program Assistants will work directly with Ginsberg’s Student Partnerships Team, which provides a variety of programs, services, and resources for student leaders and organizations.

The focus of this role will be to work on projects and programs that advance the Ginsberg Center’s capacity around student outreach and support, student programming, grant support, and facilitation. In addition to a current Program Assistant, we will be hiring one more graduate student and/or Ph.D. student to collaboratively complete the following responsibilities for the 2026-27 Academic Year, with an opportunity to renew for subsequent semesters/years. This position will start in July 2026 to support with summer orientation sessions and begin regular hours with the Center in late August. 

• Grants Team Program Support – Coordinate the Grants Team to effectively administer our Community Engagement Grant (CEG), and Alternative Breaks Grant (ABG). Both programs support student organizations planning social action experiences that meet community-identified needs. The CEG funds eligible programs carried out by UM student groups, while the ABG has a specific focus on trip-based service projects. Graduate student assistants will manage program marketing/publicity to solicit applications, co-create weekly Grant Team agendas, collect and collate applications for the Grants Team, participate in reviewing and evaluating applications and make decisions about which applications to fund and at what levels, communicate with grantees, ensure grant compliance, host office hours, monitor total spending to align with our grant budget, and complete other tasks that pertain to the maintenance of the grant program. They will plan and execute our yearly student grant showcase and report on the program each year. 

• Student Partnerships Event & Programming Support – lead and support our academic year’s programming independently and with a member of the Ginsberg professional staff, with particular attention to first years, transfers, and those new to community-engaged work. Graduate assistant responsibilities could include assisting with programmatic decisions (what to offer, how to structure programming, etc.), marketing and publicizing programs to produce participation, drawing from the existing curriculum and planning to design activities for programming, and facilitating or co-facilitating programming with Ginsberg's full-time staff. Event support will include the design, planning, and implementation of student-facing programming. 

• Outreach and Engagement – Support and lead the Ginsberg Center’s outreach and engagement efforts. Which could include maintaining and updating outreach contacts as they relate to Ginsberg’s strategic priorities, staffing outreach events, providing guidance and resources to prospective students at Ginsberg tabling events on campus, supporting the logistics, set-up, and take-down for Ginsberg-sponsored and hosted events, and identifying new opportunities for outreach, engagement, and collaboration for the Center. 

• PhD Students Only: Co-Lead Ginsberg Workshops - Facilitate workshops on topics including foundations of community engagement and pathways to community engagement. 

• Other Duties as assigned

Eligibility:

• Strong organizational skills and ability to accomplish multiple tasks proactively, autonomously, and efficiently

• Master's and Doctoral students from across the University of Michigan (master's students must have work-study)

• Previous related experience in student organization involvement and/or community engagement (including service, civic engagement, community-based research, advocacy, and activism) 

• Knowledge of social justice issues, leadership for social change models, and best practices around community engagement.

• Excellent communication skills, including strong writing, facilitation, and interpersonal skills

• Ability to work in a team-based setting and with diverse groups

• Demonstrated ability to establish priorities and exercise sound decision-making on relevant issues

• Demonstrated ability to create welcoming cultures of belonging and fairness within and between heterogeneous stakeholder groups

Desired Experiences

• Demonstrated ability to design and implement events 

• Demonstrated success with project management and program evaluation

• Demonstrated experience facilitating groups