Social Justice Springboard Fellow

Jewish Life at Duke

Role Overview

Do you have an unrelenting idealism for what the world could be? Imagine a job where you get to make a meaningful impact on both individuals and the world every day. Become a Social Justice Specialist as part of the Springboard Fellowship, a project of Hillel International!

The Springboard Fellowship is a paid, two-year fellowship that brings recent college grads with raw talent, passion, and skills needed to reimagine and redesign Jewish student life to college campuses across North America.

You’ll receive training from experts in the areas of engagement, social action and community organizing, and learn from Jewish leaders on how to seamlessly weave Judaism into your work as a Hillel engagement professional. Each day you will be charged with empowering students to work together to make change on a local and domestic level guided by Jewish values, texts, and history. You’ll work with students to identify and act on a variety of issue areas important to their campus.

If you’re team-oriented, never give up, and truly believe that you must “be the change you wish to see in the world,” then this is the position for you! .

Extensive Jewish education is not necessary — just an interest in creating a vibrant Jewish community, a commitment to learning, and the desire to make a difference in the lives of students and the world.

Who you are:

• You believe that college students can change the world.
• You are excited about engaging Jewish college students through social justice conversations.
• You have a deep passion for educating and empowering others to organize for issues of interest to them.
• You love to connect with people from different racial and religious backgrounds, listening with genuine curiosity to people’s stories and beliefs.
• You see justice as a Jewish cause and are excited to help others see this as well. You thrive when you are facilitating conversations, recruiting and training volunteers, and creating other spaces for students to learn and develop their own ideas about issues that matter to them.
• You are a master organizer who loves seeing big projects - such as service trips- through from recruiting to fundraising to staffing.
• You are comfortable with the idea that social change occurs through multiple modalities, including volunteering, education, organizing, and Jewish service learning.
• You are a skilled and empathetic communicator. You know how to tailor your message to your audience, and bring them into conversation about critical issues. This means social justice language might not be right for your campuses, but change-making ideas will certainly be a part of daily work and life.

As a Social Justice Fellow, a typical day may include:

• Meeting with a group of students or individual students over coffee or a meal to understand which issues are most important to them and developing a plan of action together.
• Participating in a conversation with the leaders of other on or off-campus religious and ethnic groups to plan a shared response to a social issue.
• Planning or leading an alternative break program
• Teaching a pre-trip service learning course to prepare students for an alternative break trip.
• Participating in a professional development webinar
• Teaching and facilitating Jewish learning through a social justice lens
• Recruiting for an upcoming service trip or local volunteer experience
• Adding a service, social justice, or Jewish/universal values element to an existing program such as a Shabbat, a lunch and learn, or a holiday activity.

What you’ll get out of it:

• High-level professional development, including $3,200 in professional development funds, to help develop core skills in experiential education, including learning from some of the most innovative organizations in Jewish education today.
• Intensive Jewish summer and year-long learning experiences that will provide you with the knowledge, passion, and critical tool kit to fuel your work building our Jewish communities.
• Mentoring and career coaching to help you during and after your Fellowship.
• A network of terrific colleagues from across the Hillel movement.
• Travel opportunities, both domestically and internationally, multiple times per year (if permitted following COVID-19 safety guidelines).
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, Tax Deferred Retirement Plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability insurances, Flexible Spending Plan, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
• A minimum base salary of $44,000 in year 1 and $46,500 in year 2