This year, we’re recruiting Harvard students for volunteer staff positions at the Project for Better Journalism. This is a special opportunity to be both part of a nationwide initiative and an on-campus community.

PBJ sits at the intersection of education reform, technology, journalism, and media. If you want to spend some time each week making a real difference during your time at Harvard and gaining valuable experience, this is the way to do it.

To be considered in Round 1, submit your application by Sunday evening.
Scroll down for the application form.

About PBJ

The Project for Better Journalism is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening student journalism programs and curriculum at schools across the country.

We work directly with educators, their classrooms, and their students to provide support for their journalism curriculum– helping them launch student publications online, and supplementing their classes with special programming, collaborations, and assistance.

In a time where schools everywhere are downsizing and shutting down their journalism classes, we’re trying to demonstrate that offering extracurricular programs makes a difference in student lives. We think they increase literacy, academic success, and achievement in life.

PBJ is supported by the Harvard Innovation Lab, Youth Service for America, DigitalOcean, Amazon AWS, and various foundations.

About PBJ at Harvard

We’re looking to massively grow our presence at Harvard University in the fall 2016 cycle. Having a community of staff members here means we can retain the benefits of an on-campus organization — with easy collaboration and social opportunities — while also connecting us with the nationwide team.

PBJ is also a member of the VIP program at the Harvard Innovation Lab, which means that staff members get access to VIP-only entrepreneurship events, networking sessions, and more; and a member of the VIP EdTech Thinktank.

To apply

You’ll need to send in your resume too. If selected for a second round interview, you will be notified via email or phone.

Note: Rejection culture at Harvard is real and we want to minimize that. PBJ has no quotas, but sometimes some people aren’t the right fit at the right time. If this is the case, please feel comfortable — and encouraged — to apply again at a later date!

More reading

You should read about our mission. If curious, you can also explore what we offer our school chapters specifically.

About the positions

PBJ staff positions are unpaid commitments of around 3-6 hours/week. Every person makes a commitment to the organization based on a mutual discussion.

You usually work with a small team on a specific initiative. Weekly meetings and regular communication is expected. For new staff at Harvard, your official title can be lead coordinator, coordinator, or junior coordinator; but your role will span multiple roles.

We’re organized into teams and projects. Teams are on-going — like the team that supports our schools and our engineering team — while projects are short-term (several months or less), like our collaborations or specific curriculum development. Some of us are on a permanent team; others jump from project to project; and some do both.

Business development and operations

Most  positions are broadly classified in this category. There are no specific skills needed other than leadership, diligence, and strong communication and organization ethic.

You’ll gain a variety of experience; some of the things you might do —

• Communicate with our chapter schools and make a real impact for these teachers. Teach them how to use their platform and help them improve their classroom environments.
• Organize and then execute our enrichment initiatives. Get in touch with professionals and help them coordinate workshops for our schools. Put together new programming that makes students’ lives better.
• Bring our schools together and create new collaboration opportunities. We’ve done events where students think critically about their hometowns and their backgrounds. Help instill important values of diversity, freedom of speech, community involvement, and social justice.
• Help level the playing field for everyone in America by leading the charge to bring on new schools, including Title I schools, inner city schools, and rural low-access schools.
• Learn how real nonprofits fundraise by communicating with our donors and bringing foundations and grants on board.
• If you have the background, help us track our effectiveness, collect information from schools, and use data science techniques to find out how we should recruit new schools and improve our programs.

This is not a school club in an artificial bubble; real schools, real students, and real teachers depend on us. We’d love to have you help lead the charge.

Engineering

PBJ is also a technology solution. One of our fundamental promises is that we can offer these programs at scale and at lower cost. We need a strong engineering team to do that.

Our core platform is a PHP/WordPress-based solution. Internal software tools are being built in Python/Django. We’re looking for strong web developers and designers in general, though; if you have background in general, we are interested.

Graphics and production

This year we’re also looking to expand our graphics and production team, who can help our chapter schools, capture our impact, and occasionally create media. Some of the things you might do —

• Graphics design for our chapter schools, helping them put together backgrounds, logos, images, and more.
• Tutoring and training for chapters in how to take news photographs, use Photoshop, etc.
• If you have experience, video production to make occasional shorts highlighting our schools or our work.

If you’re interested, fill out the “publicity and production positions” supplement.

Questions?

Please contact Brandon Wang, who is coordinating the team at Harvard, with any questions or to meet at [email protected]. In particular, we’re happy to offer short coffee chats to discuss how you might help our work!

You can also contact [email protected].