Assistant Director, Digital Transgender Archive

Description

The College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) combines Northeastern University’s signature approach to experiential learning with liberal arts education, interdisciplinary research, and community engagement, both locally and globally.

The College comprises 17 academic units, including two schools, seven departments, and eight interdisciplinary programs, as well as 15 research centers and institutes. Our faculty connects liberal arts education with the challenges of our time, and fosters ethical reasoning and critical thought, with attention to the enduring significance of history, literature, and culture. CSSH promotes inquiry with global perspectives and a culture of inclusion across interdisciplinary clusters of expertise including: Resilience, Sustainability, Health, and Equity; Cultural studies, Governance, and Globalization; and Network Science, Computational Social Science, Digital Humanities, and Data Ethics.

CSSH is strongly committed to fostering excellence through diversity and promotes a culture of inclusion for our students, faculty, and staff. Guided by a Strategic Plan on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, the College enthusiastically welcomes applications from members of groups underrepresented in higher education administration.

Responsibilities:

The Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) seeks to hire a full-time Assistant Director to establish a new project hub at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California.

The DTA, available at www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net, is a freely available online collection of over 12,000 trans-related historical materials contributed by more than 80 collaborators worldwide. The project is currently based at Northeastern University’s Boston, Massachusetts campus, where it is part of a robust ecosystem of digital humanities projects including several renowned digital archives. 

Reporting to the Director of the DTA, Professor K.J. Rawson, the Assistant Director will establish and run a small lab of undergraduate student research assistants at Mills College and will work with the DTA’s existing Bay Area collaborators and forge new partnerships to prepare and implement local digitization initiatives. This position will involve conducting on-site and off-site research, assessing copyright and privacy concerns, facilitating digitization and processing, training and supervising students in the lab, maintaining high-quality metadata standards, participating in outreach efforts, and contributing to the leadership of the project.

We warmly invite people with various skills and levels of expertise to apply to this position. Candidates who meet some, but not all, of the qualifications listed below are strongly encouraged to apply. We seek colleagues who are committed to building an inclusive and diverse working environment and who are underrepresented or marginalized – including but not limited to people of color, LGBTQ+ people, individuals with disabilities and applicants from lower-income and first-generation academic backgrounds. We expect this position to be an ongoing learning experience and are committed to supporting professional development. 

Qualifications:

• Master’s in Library Science degree, advanced degree in an area related to transgender history and archives, or commensurate experience
• Demonstrated knowledge of digital archives, including digitization workflows and standards
• Demonstrated knowledge of metadata and archival description standards, particularly Dublin Core
• A successful candidate will be able to collaborate with the Boston team and work independently from the Oakland-based lab
• Working knowledge of intellectual property, copyright, and privacy issues related to digital collections
• Facility with transgender-related topics
• Excellent research, writing, and oral communication skills
• Preferred experience working with digital archives or libraries
• Preferred experience in a supervisory role
• Preferred experience with project management

We realize that this is a lengthy list of activities and qualifications. There are multiple paths toward success in this position, and each may look somewhat different depending on the successful candidate’s interests and experience.

Documents to Submit:

Applicants should submit a resume and a cover letter that highlights qualifications for the position and includes a diversity statement. In the diversity statement, applicants should describe how they can support CSSH's commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Applicants can provide specific examples of initiatives they have led or participated in that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. This could include organizing events or programs, implementing policies or practices, serving on committees, or creating spaces that foster a sense of belonging for individuals from diverse backgrounds.

The expected hiring range for this position is $73,535 - $90,000 based on the position’s scope and responsibilities.