Program Manager

Position Overview:

The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality, hosted by MIT, brings together feminist scholars and teachers from nine Boston area institutions for the purpose of advancing interdisciplinary, intersectional feminist scholarship and teaching in the areas of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. The Consortium is committed to cultivating collaborative intellectual communities across fields and disciplines, creating professional development opportunities for graduate students and faculty, and providing a sustainable model of institutional collaboration.

The Program Manager oversees and manages all operational matters for the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality.  They will oversee and manage the consortium’s operations and administrative needs while incorporating the mission and values of the organization. Responsibilities include managing communications of GCWS initiatives across nine member campuses; developing and overseeing a five-year budget; assisting with course development and managing student course enrollment; creating content for website, social media, listserv, and print materials; collaborating with teams to create and manage events including the Feminisms Unbound series, biannual graduate student conference, Women Take the Reel film festival, and faculty receptions; and developing and providing annual documentation for key stakeholders. The program manager is overseen by the GCWS board of representatives. 

Salary range: $69,000-77,000 / year

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

Courses and Course Development

The Program Manager manages all aspects of GCWS course development for graduate-level courses and micro-seminars, including:

• Work with the GCWS Board to identify teaching teams, propose course ideas, and guide course development

• Administer GCWS graduate courses including setting up course websites, managing the student application and acceptance process, officiating cross-registration, grade reporting, administrating course evaluations, securing course logistics, and supporting GCWS faculty. 

Communications

The Program Manager will manage all GCWS communications. Specific duties include:

• Develop and implement the strategic plan for communications of GCWS initiatives across all member institutions, the greater Boston area, and (in conference years) at institutions across the country

• Create and manage content for the GCWS website, social media, listservs, and other communications

• Serve as primary point of contact for all communications 

Finance

The Program Manager is responsible for advising the Board of Directors on financial matters, managing the annual GCWS budget of $200,000, and attending to all internal MIT financial processes. Specific duties include:

• Develop annual financial plan and 5-year budget projections which includes determining increases to membership dues tiers

• Oversee expenditures on all GCWS projects

Event Management

The Program Manager is responsible for managing all GCWS events from conception to completion, including the program’s biannual student conference, faculty development and curriculum building events, Women Take the Reel film festival, bi-annual Feminist Pedagogies symposium, and other student and faculty events as needed. Specific duties include:

• Develop and manage timeline and action plan for each event

• Collaborate and communicate with GCWS Board, faculty, and student event co-organizers about budget, space, logistics, promotion, etc

• Create and provide documentation and evaluations on annual and biannual events to support and inform future events

• Create, prepare and distribute all promotional materials (print, email, social media, web, etc)

• Implement all logistical planning for events in accordance with MIT and member institution regulations (space, catering, speakers, event forms, etc)

Human Resources

The Program Manager implements all administrative HR activities, acting as a liaison between GCWS and SHASS HR offices on all related processes. Specific duties include:

• Process faculty appointments

• Hire and supervise a part time Program Assistant

• Manage independent contractors and temporary employees as needed

• Maintain personnel files and records

Campus Stakeholders

• Provides documentation and/or reporting to internal and/or external campus stakeholders and responds to inquiries

• Develops annual report and yearly membership dues materials for each campus and manages payment process

• Develops documentation and process for board members to renew memorandum of agreement between their campus and the GCWS every 5 years

 Other duties as needed or required.

Supervision Received:

 

This position will report to the the co-chairs of the GCWS Board of Representatives. There will be regular monthly meetings between the Program Manager and the co-chairs during the academic year. Outside of regulary meetings, the co-chairs will be available by email.

Supervision Exercised:

The GCWS Program Manager will supervise one, generally part-time and temporary, Program Assistant during the academic year. The GCWS Program Manager is responsible for advertising the position, interviewing candidates, and hiring a Program Assistant each year. The Program Manager will supervise the Program Assistant to identify areas of growth and interest for professional development throughout the academic year. The Program Manager will have weekly supervision meetings with the Program Assistant.

Qualifications & Skills:

MINIMUM REQUIRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

• EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree and successful experience in academic administration or a related field a minimum of three years of administrative, operations, and/or project/program management experience required.

• PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Demonstrated experience with project management and ability to manage multiple complex projects; special events and conference planning, project management, program administration and communications

• FINANCES: Experience in financial planning and budgeting, overseeing financial processes, financial record keeping and reporting

• COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Excellent, advanced oral and written communication skills; excellent interpersonal skills; ability to effectively and diplomatically relate to a wide variety of people

• WORK INDEPENDENTLY: Ability to work independently and exercise sound judgment in all matters related to all job tasks; ability to work collaboratively, deliver results, and establish effective working relationship with multiple stakeholders

• TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY: High level of technical proficiency with hardware and software; proficiency with Microsoft Office suite especially Word and Excel; familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop/Publisher, and Dreamweaver in particular); familiarity with digital meeting software

• FLEXIBILITY: Schedule flexibility and availability for evening and weekend events

• CULTURAL COMPETANCE: Familiarity and cultural competence with issues and vocabularies related to Women’s, Gender, Sexuality, Queer, Trans, Race, and Ethnic Studies

• Deals with confidential information and/or issues using discretion and judgment.

 GCWS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against candidates on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, or veteran status. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and members of other marginalized groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

Administrative Assistant 2022-2023

Application Deadline: August 12, 2022

Employment Dates: September 12, 2022 - May 1, 2023

Hours per week: 12

Pay: $20/ hour

The Administrative Assistant will be expected to work independently and take initiative to support the mission of the GCWS as it is realized through communications, events, student and faculty support, community building, and social media activities. The Administrative Assistant will receive direct oversight from the Program Manager. They will be trusted as a team member who has valuable ideas to contribute to building our program and representing it to those within and outside of the community.  As such, the ideal candidate will have a social justice oriented background or area of interest and some knowledge of issues related to the academic discipline of WGSS.

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality uses a number of tools to reach student and faculty audiences. The Administrative Assistant will play a key role in creating and publishing content across our social media platforms and email listservs. Major responsibilities will include curating content for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn), updating our online calendar, creating our twice monthly newsletter, and other responsibilities as they arise.

The Administrative Assistant is guaranteed 12 hours per week during the academic year. Some weeks (particularly when events are happening) will require additional hours. The Administrative Assistant will receive advance notice of when additional hours will be necessary. Exact hours and days will be determined between the GCWS Program Manager and the individual hired. We can discuss whether an in-person, remote, or hybrid schedule would be best for the individual hired.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

GCWSfeministboston email list (30%): The Administrative Assistant will manage the production of the GCWS email listserv (sent 2x per month), which includes researching relevant events, collecting and formatting postings from the Program Manager and others in the WGSS community, managing listserv membership, and updating the google event calendar.

Social Media Support and Maintenance (50%): The Administrative Assistant will be responsible for curating material and creating posts for GCWS social media channels. Content curation will include finding materials (articles, images, current events, etc) that fit our content goals. They should be comfortable and familiar with various social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, IG, LinkedIn Constant Contact, etc.) and open to learning programs that they are not familiar with. Initiative and innovation in these areas is highly valued.

Office Administrative Support (10%) This could include administrative tasks related to projects that arise during the academic year to support GCWS courses, events, or growth (examples: revising or adding to our website, database content, online research, etc.).

Event Administrative Support (10%) This primarily includes supporting the SP2023 graduate student conference and can include working with speakers, creating materials, updating spreadsheets, or other tasks as they arise.  

Qualifications & Skills:

 PREFERRED:

 One – two years of experience in an office environment.

Helpful skills and knowledge:

• Social media applications and regularly used website applications (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Canva, Constant Contact, SquareSpace, and others)

• Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook

• General technical skills

• Detail-oriented

• Strong communication skills

Occasional evening/weekend availability would be beneficial to support GCWS events pending your class schedule and other responsibilities.

Application Process

Please send a resume and cover letter expressing interest, skills, and experience via the button below. If the link is not working then you can send materials to Stacey Lantz - slantz@mit.edu. Interviews will be via Zoom during August.

GCWS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against candidates on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, or veteran status. Women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, and members of other marginalized groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

 GCWS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against candidates on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, or veteran status. Women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, and members of other marginalized groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

** To comply with regulations by the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), the principal duties in job descriptions must be essential to the job. To identify essential functions, focus on the purpose and the result of the duties rather than the manner in which they are performed. The following definition applies: a job function is essential if removal of that function would fundamentally change the job.

Instructor: Workshop for Dissertation Writers in Women’s and Gender Studies 2022-2023

The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality (GCWS) is seeking a faculty member for our full year Workshop for Dissertation Writers in Women’s and Gender Studies in 2022-2023. This course meets every other week over the course of the academic year and is worth the equivalent of one graduate course. Tenure, tenure-track, and lecturers are welcome to submit a proposal and teach with the GCWS.

This course will provider dissertators in interdisciplinary women’s and gender studies a collaborative environment to pursue their writing goals. Instructor responsibilities include helping students to understand methodological and theoretical issues related to interdisciplinary feminist research and to apply those concerns in their own dissertations; providing feedback to student works-in-progress; and helping facilitate peer review of each other’s work.

Faculty from our member institutions (Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Simmons, Tufts, and UMass Boston) are welcome to submit a proposal. The instructor will determine the day and time the workshop meets. Previous syllabi and course descriptions are available for review. The faculty member will ideally have substantial experience teaching and mentoring Ph.D. students.

The GCWS has a memorandum of agreement with our member institutions which allows faculty members to teach a course for us as part of their regular teaching load or to receive a stipend.

Interested faculty members should send questions and/or submit a current CV and syllabus for Dissertation Writers in Women’s and Gender Studies to GCWS Program Manager Stacey Lantz atslantz@mit.edu.

Sample syllabi can be found here.

Feminist and Queer Methods Spring 2023

The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality (GCWS) is seeking faculty to teach one section of Feminist and Queer Methods in Spring 2023.Tenure, tenure-track, and lecturers are welcome to teach with the GCWS.

The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality is seeking a faculty member for our core course: Feminist and Queer Methodology for spring 2023. This graduate-level course is an interdisciplinary exploration of feminist methodology, knowledge, theory, and praxis which trains students to interrogate the ways they approach research, material, and knowledge production.

Faculty from our member institutions (Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Simmons, Tufts, and UMass Boston) are welcome to submit a proposal. The GCWS has a standing memorandum of agreement with all member institutions which allows faculty members to teach a course for the consortium as part of their regular teaching load or to receive a stipend.

Graduate students of any discipline and from any of our member institutions are eligible to take the course. The teaching team will determine the day, time, and semester the course meets.

Interested faculty members should submit a current CV and course goals for Feminist Inquiry to GCWS Program Manager, Stacey Lantz at slantz@mit.edu.

Sample syllabi can be found here.

Teaching Team: Elective Course 2020-2021

The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality (GCWS) is seeking faculty to teach one section of an elective course, to be offered in Fall 2020 or Spring 2021. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, our thriving community of feminist faculty and graduate students recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Tenure, tenure-track, and lecturers are welcome to teach with the GCWS.

Faculty from our member institutions (Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Simmons, Tufts, and UMass Boston) are welcome to apply. In keeping with the consortium’s unique teaching model, this course will be co-taught by faculty from two different member institutions and two different disciplines. We encourage interested teaching teams to apply together, but also welcome applications from individual instructors. The GCWS office can help connect interested applicants.

This course meets on the MIT campus. Graduate students of any discipline and from any of our member institutions are eligible to take the course. The teaching team will determine the day, time, and semester the course meets.

The GCWS has a standing memorandum of agreement with all member institutions which allows faculty members to teach a course for the consortium as part of their regular teaching load or to receive a stipend.

Each academic year, GCWS offers three distinct elective courses on important and cutting-edge topics. The topics routinely change and these courses normally provide an opportunity for instructors to teach a subject that may not be possible at their home institution. Courses, regardless of topic, integrate a gender analysis along with issues of class, race, culture, ethnicity, and sexualities and consider the practical implications of feminist theory.

GCWS is especially interested in instructors who can teach the following courses (or related topics), but applicants are welcome to propose their own course ideas. We also welcome proposals for courses that are U.S.-focused or have a more international focus.

Death and Feminism

• Death and funerary practices, which were traditionally individual and community centered events with women at the helm, is now a multi-billion dollar industry. 

• How has capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and war impacted our views on death, dying, and the dead?

• What can we learn from our ancestries, heritages, and traditional practices about revolutionizing death practices?

Environmental Justice

• How is today’s environmental justice and activism connected to feminist struggles within broader histories and debates about economic globalization and social change?

• How does environmental activism either center or dismiss the populations most likely to be impacted either by race, geographic location, and/or native ancestry?

• How does capitalism and corporations avert and shift responsibility to individuals through marketing reusable straws and other trendy movements?

 Future Uses of the Erotic

• Sex toys and equipment can be a powerful way for people with disabilities to explore sexual pleasure and can also be used by trans/GNC/NB and queer people to explore sexual and gender identities. However, these advancements happen alongside increased surveillance and data tracking.

• How does technology and technological advancements support or monitor our sexual identities and exploration?

 Olympics and other Mega-Events

• How do Olympics and/or other mega-events contribute to displacement/relocation, poor infrastructure development, rapid gentrification, eradication of public use lands, and increased surveillance and violence against marginalized communities?

• How do es it relate to environmental justice, indigenous rights, and other forms of activism?

• Body policing is rampant within sports and the Olympics which is seen in restrictions and disqualification of intersexed athletes such as Caster Semenya or racist commentary on the “natural” physical ability of Black athletes such as Simone Biles.

• How does race, gender, and sex impact who can compete and how they are treated on the international field? 

Surveillance States and Urban Development

• Urban development means more convenience but also increased cameras in our daily life – at traffic lights, public transit, public schools, storefronts, and other places.

• What are the implications of increased surveillance? How can we plan urban development without increasing surveillance measures?

 Previous course topics can be found on our website www.gcws.mit.edu/seminarsoverview.

Interested faculty members should submit a current CV, course title, and brief description for the course to GCWS Program Manager, Stacey Lantz at slantz@mit.edu.