Overview
The graduate assistant will support first-generation and other underrepresented students on their path to master's and doctoral programs. At a minimum, graduate assistants serve as highly engaged orientation leaders, advisors, peer instructors and discussion leaders, recruiters, project and event coordinators, program assistants, and graduate and professional school advocates.
Responsibilities
• Assist the instructor and students in the junior courses: LIBA 1003 (fall) and LIBA 1004 (spring). Help facilitate discussions and class activities and provide individual and group support to students.
• Assist with one or more special projects, including producing senior publications and the ACE newsletter and coordinating senior meetings/activities.
• Help coordinate monthly social engagements for juniors. If needed, collaborate with the Faculty Fellow, Resident Director and Advisor, and other staff.
• Attend and co-facilitate the ACE summer orientation and trip for newly admitted students in August.
•Present to prospective ACE students during information sessions, classrooms, and other media. Serve as an ambassador for the ACE program and graduate and professional education, where possible.
• Communicate with parents/guardians and prospective students by phone or email, informing them about ACE and encouraging students to apply for admission.
• Provide administrative and other support to the ACE program and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office when needed. Responsibilities may include performing data entry, assisting with events, reserving and confirming rooms, filing, placing and answering emails and phone calls, and supervising the ACE office in the director’s absence.
• Additional responsibilities as needed.
Benefits
Graduate Assistants have the opportunity to:
• Support first-generation and other underrepresented students
• Enhance their public speaking and interpersonal skills
• Develop or strengthen peer instruction and group facilitation skills
• Recruit prospective students to ACE
• Deepen their knowledge about educational access and diversity
• Coordinate social engagements and mentorship opportunities and more
Qualifications
Applicants for the Graduate Assistant position must:
• Be responsible, professionally trustworthy, and capable of working with integrity
• Embrace the mission and philosophy of the ACE Program • Be committed to serving first-generation and ethnically diverse students
• Be highly teachable and open to constructive feedback to grow professionally and personally
• Possess exceptional professionalism, initiative, work ethic, and character
• Possess or be willing to learn group facilitation, public speaking, and interpersonal skills to teach and form trusted relationships with students
• Have the capacity to meet deadlines and balance multiple projects and activities of varying degree
• Be able to work efficiently on a team, take the initiative, be resourceful, and work autonomously
Requirements
• Attend two-day training on August 23rd and 24th.
• Attend and help facilitate a full-day orientation and trip on August 25th and 26th.
• Attend weekly junior ACE classes on Thursdays, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm, and one or two monthly social engagements or events as needed.
• Be able to work 20 hours per week.
Graduate Assistant
I am a current M.S. Management student at Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business Administration. I recently graduated from LMU’s College of Communications and Fine Arts as a communication studies major. My educational journey has prepared me for the M.S. Management program by challenging how I perceive the world and resolve complex issues. After graduation, I plan to go to law school and specialize in economic injustice. I intend to leverage my education to serve others and provide a sustainable future for generations to come by creating community centers and retail spaces in historically marginalized regions that give people a platform to share their art form and receive support for higher education, affordable housing, as well as career and skill training.
As a graduate assistant for the Academic Community of Excellence (ACE), I coordinate events, communicate with prospective students and parents, oversee the program’s Upward Bound and Bigs & Littles mentorship initiatives, am a mentor to students who aspire to pursue higher education in business administration, as well as develop publications for ACE.