Graduate Assistantship Available: Graduate Research Assistant, Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative

March 22, 2021

Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative

Job Title:  Graduate Research Assistant

Our Unit

The Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative (NSSC) is an innovative and collaborative organization of experts driving Michigan State University to continually improve the services, practices, and activities for holistic student success. The NSSC promotes academic proficiency, institutional navigation, and socio-emotional engagement to promote student success. Our unit is committed to empowering undergraduate students to pursue knowledge, access resources, and develop skills needed for success. Our goals align with the broader institution goals of closing opportunity gaps for underserved (first generation, low-income, Black, Latinx, and/or Native American/Indigenous) students by increasing persistence, retention, and graduation rates, and decreasing time to degree. Housed in the Office of the Provost, the unit reports to the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education (APUE). The NSSC works closely with Student Affairs and Services, Residential and Hospitality Services and other key units on campus to meet University student success goals.

Overview

An NSSC Graduate Research Assistant reports to the Data Analyst, who manages their projects in support of the overall mission of the NSSC.  Graduate Assistants support the projects within the NSSC, including support for student programs, academic research on the NSSC undertakings, and aiding in assessment work. In addition to the support of the NSSC, this position provides a learning opportunity for the Graduate Assistant by working directly with individuals throughout the NSSC to better understand how administrative student success work is done through personal experience.

Primary Duties

  • Research (34%) – Support, conduct, and participate in publication of research about NSSC projects and programs
    • Carrying out literature searches and compiling literature reviews, using standard techniques and protocols.
    • Carrying out surveys, including the development of questionnaires, facilitating focus groups, carrying out interviews, doing documentary analysis.
    • Undertake research tasks, including planning, preparing, conducting and recording quantitative and qualitative research.
    • Performing data analysis.
    • Present research findings internally and at external conferences.
    • Contribute to the writing of research papers for publication as a co-author.
  • Assessment work (33%) – Work with the NSSC Data Analyst to conduct, analyze, and report on assessment data
    • Supporting in the collection of data for assessment purposes.
    • Performing data analysis on assessment data.
    • Conducting and support work for focus groups.
    • Contributing to and reviewing assessment reports.
  • Program support (33%) – Work directly with program staff to enhance program performance
    • Perform support work for program staff such as of the Detroit MADE, Dow STEM, and TRIO SSS programs.
    • Assist in the development of and execution of programming activities and services for students.
    • Research and collect information in support of programs, including information about peer institutions, best practices, and current research.

Desired Qualifications

  • Experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research:
    • Conducting focus groups.
    • Creating surveys.
  • Qualitative data analysis experience:
    • Coding qualitative response data.
    • Experience with coding software (Dedoose, NVivo, etc).
  • Quantitative data analysis experience:
    • Experience manipulating data in Excel, including formulas.
  • Experience working with administrative units in higher education.

Minimum Requirements

  • Graduate Student at Michigan State University.
  • Great verbal and written communication skills for collaboration with internal and external partners of the NSSC.
  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Outlook).

Required Degree

Bachelor’s degree, preferably in Sociology, Psychology, Education, Social Work or related fields    

Application Instructions: Submit resume/CV and cover letter by 11:59 PM Sunday, March 28th to Kristi Porrell (porrellk@msu.edu)