What is the Library Undergraduate Fellowship Program?
The Library Undergraduate Fellowship Program is a pilot initiative designed to enhance student success by providing meaningful on-campus employment opportunities within the university library. Each fellow will receive $5,000, distributed at an hourly rate over two semesters (Fall 2025 and Spring 2026). The program aligns with students’ academic coursework and career goals, fostering academic enrichment, social engagement, and financial capability as a high-impact practice. Fellows will develop employable and academic skills while contributing to the library’s Learning, Creative, and Research Commons.
Fellowship Program Goals
- Increase student retention, GPA, engagement, satisfaction, achievement of program learning outcomes, career and/or graduate school readiness.
- Tie fellowship work to fellows’ coursework and career pathways through reflection, professional skill development, and self-defined learning outcomes.
- Leverage the university’s micro-credential and digital badging program to document transferable skills.
- Support the library’s mission by providing peer-to-peer assistance in digital literacy, information literacy, data literacy, communication, and digital prototyping/production/design.
Fellowship Learning Outcomes
Student library fellows will be placed into a department within the library to work on projects that will develop their ability to:
- Use information effectively for a specific purpose (Information Literacy)
- Explain content clearly based on context (Written/Oral communication)
- Apply information and understanding to a specific problem or context (Critical Thinking)
- Practice professional behavior and navigating a work environment (Professionalism)
- Understand the processes, resources, and trends or technologies within their field (Career Development)
- Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals (Technology)
- Collaborate effectively in diverse and interdisciplinary teams and/or work with an awareness of diverse audiences (Teamwork and Cultural Competence)
Policies
Hourly Rate: The hourly rate will be set at $15/hour, consistent with campus student employment standards, equating to approximately 166.67 hours/semester).
Work Schedule: Fellows will work approximately 10 hours per week during the academic semester, with schedules coordinated by the library supervisor to accommodate coursework.
Roles and Responsibilities
Fellows will be assigned to one or more of the following focus areas based on their skills and interests:
- Digital Literacy and Scholarship: Assist peers and faculty with tools for digital publishing, text analysis, AI prompt engineering, multimedia editing/production, and AR/VR technologies.
- Information Literacy and Critical Thinking: Support students in locating, evaluating, and synthesizing authoritative information sources.
- Data Literacy: Aid in data identification, curation, analysis, and visualization for academic projects.
- Communication: Develop and deliver training sessions, presentations, and promotional materials for library services.
- University Archives and Special Collections: Select, organize and preserve collection materials, create resources to make the collections discoverable, research and design exhibitions, and teach others to use archival material.
