Student Writer, College Editorial Team

The College is looking for current students to serve as writers on the College Editorial Team. Overseen by staff members of the College Communications and IT teams, the College Editorial Team is a team of students dedicated to sharing stories of life in the College. Writers will write website features and create social media content that showcases student accomplishments, student life and student activities and programming across campus. In addition to maintaining the feature section of the College website, writers will also manage the College social media accounts, which include Facebook and Twitter. To aid in story and content ideas, writers will stay connected across campus through social media groups and communicate regularly with students/student organizations to keep a pulse on major student activities occurring throughout the year.

The positions are for the 2018-2019 academic year and are open to College students who will be in the second, third and fourth year, as of the start of the 2018-2019 academic year. Writers can work up to ten hours per week and are required to attend a weekly planning meeting while the University is in session.

Positions are open to both Federal Work-Study and Non-Federal Work Study eligible students.

Responsibilities include:

·    Feature story development: Write feature stories about student life on campus. This includes cultivating and pitching story ideas, conducting interviews and research, and writing and editing stories.

·    Website management: Maintain the features section of the College website by drafting and publishing feature stories.

·    Social media content: Produce social media content for College channels, including content to accompany feature stories, real-time/live coverage of student events and programs, identifying students for social media “takeovers,” and general posts about day-to-day student life. Writers should stay educated on current or rising social media trends that may be applicable to the College channels.

·    Editorial planning: Contribute to the team’s editorial calendar by inputting stories’ draft and publish dates, scheduling social media content, arranging for photography or graphic production and tracking key student events throughout the academic year.

·    Weekly meeting: When the University is in session, writers will attend a weekly editorial meeting to plan content and brainstorm ideas.

Successful candidates will be organized, self-motivated and work well both independently and on a team. They will have exceptional writing and content creation skills, a keen editorial eye and an interest in technology and social media trends. Journalism experience highly desired but not required.

Interested candidates should submit a short cover letter, resume, three samples of content (journalism) and three College feature or content ideas to Danika Kmetz at dkmetz@uchicago.edu, with subject line: College Editorial Team Application—Last Name. If you have social media accounts relevant to your application, please feel free to include the links in your cover letter.

Please Note: There are 3 positions open for this role. We are open to phone interviews over the summer for the position!

In addition, Second and Third Year students are preferred, as this position is long term and may stretch into the following academic year.