Messy Conversations Program Asst S. Beth Lohre Study Seattle

Start Date:

10/13/2025
End Date: 6/30/2026
Number of Positions: 2, One student will focus on administrative support/documentation & backup, the other on outreach to students, faculty, AU community & beyond

Hours per Week: 20 hrs/3 students

Weekends

Required:

No

Evenings

Required:

Yes

Supervisor:
Sara Beth Lohre

Alternate Supervisor:
Asa Wilder

This position allows for remote work:
Yes

Percentage of time that could be remote (0-100%): 100%

Method to assess remote work:
Attendance at Messy Conversations 3:45 PM PT-5:45 PM PT + Weekly meetings to discuss work/progress & support in addition to weekly Tuesday Planning Team meetings--4-5 PM PT in addition to workload as decided and two-way feedback sessions.

• Work-Study Position:
  Messy Conversations Federal Work Study (FWS)
• About Messy Conversations:
  Messy Conversations is a community dialogue series centering lived experience, collective learning, and relational accountability. We host weekly conversations, share resources, and maintain a growing public archive.
• Role
  
  Summary:
  
  The work study (FWS) supports the full lifecycle of our weekly conversations—planning, outreach, live-session support, and post-session archiving—while helping maintain our communications channels and records. This position is cross-trained to cover all functions.
• Work Study Students (2) will work collaboratively with the other work-study student to define roles and division of labor each quarter so the work is covered smoothly and sustainably—roles assigned based on skills, experience, willingness to learn and divided up by the students along with the supervisor's guidance. This is an opportunity to connect AU resources with the existing and always-changing larger community and to develop skills needed to amplify voices on issues of anti-racism and social justice including communication, practice, documentation, networking, marketing, outreach, and community-building, among many others.
• Key Responsibilities
• Event Operations (live on Zoom) — all duties will take a few minutes to a few hours depending on the person and their learning. Students are encouraged to build, develop and adapt our current organizational systems to best support their work and their way of engaging in the work.
• Attend weekly Messy Conversations (typically Mondays, 3:45-5:45 PM PT) to provide live support (resource links in chat, light moderation, and troubleshooting).
• Capture and label session artifacts (screenshots as appropriate; chat transcript; links, slides, Padlet items shared by participants).
• Download, label, and archive all session materials promptly in shared drives.
• Planning & Coordination — Attend weekly planning meetings (typically Tuesdays, 4:00 PM PT) and implement assigned follow-ups.
• Coordinate with the team to gather session info (titles, guests, bios, resources) for flyers, invites, and the archive.
• Help manage incoming/outgoing email related to announcements and RSVPs.
• Communications & Outreach — Create a weekly promo cadence: draft flyer by Tuesday; share a test reminder to the team by Wednesday; distribute the announcement by Thursday morning; send calendar invites by Friday as needed.
• Maintain and update the Messy Conversations website/pages as needed.
• Create social media content and short highlight clips from past sessions for posting/embedding.
• Documentation, Publishing & Archiving — Upload recorded videos to You Tube and link them to our Lib Guides/archive promptly.
• Maintain accurate attendance counts and collect participant contact info in accordance with program policies.
• Keep the master mailing list current and maintain the “Complete Sessions” spreadsheet (title, date, guests, attendance, links).
• Support broader archiving initiatives and help refine our knowledge-management systems.
• Partnerships & Logistics — Coordinate with community partners (e.g., Malik Books) to distribute digital gift certificates when applicable and archive related receipts.
• Assist with recruiting and onboarding future student staff when transitions arise.
• Growth Projects (as capacity allows) — Explore turning Messy Conversations into a podcast (editing, distribution to major platforms).
• Support grant research and drafting…