By Ollin Garcia Pliego
For many years, domestic and international students have decided to stay and utilize the summer job opportunities available at Lawrence. These openings have allowed students to build work experience and save money. For international undergraduates, these options have also permitted them to remain in the country, since many cannot go back home during the three-month break.
The list of positions open this summer is considerably wide. The departments and divisions hiring are: Facility Services, Summer Events, Mail Services, Art Gallery, Information Technology Services, Bon Appétit Catering Services, Communications, Wellness Center, Admissions Office and Reunion Weekend Staff.
Lawrentians may find it beneficial to apply for for the summer positions, especially freshmen and sophomores, because it could lead to future internships and career paths. Admissions Counselor Gaelyn Rose encourages students to apply for the summer admissions staff positions and describes the job’s main duties:
“The main task is going to be giving tours to prospective students… but, each day they can be doing office support tasks, reaching out to students by phone or e-mail, participating in student panels, helping cover our front desk as well as our back desk. They do a little bit of data entry [and] assist with some financial aid projects.”
Although being a summer admissions staff worker requires plenty of social, written, communication and interpersonal skills, Rose admits that there is a good work environment that allows both staff and student workers to build a close relationship. “They’ll have interaction with [us] through morning meetings in which everyone is involved in reporting as well as through different task assignments where they’ll be working with admission counselors,” Rose said.
Rose tells students looking for summer plans that “we’ll be happy to work with students and work with your timeline as best as possible. Also, it’s a really great job for people who love Lawrence, who are very personable, and would love to gain contact with some prospective students.”
Moreover, Gallery and Collections Coordinator Leslie Walfish has been working with students both during the academic year and throughout the summer for the past seven years: “a lot are interns that start with us over the summer [who] choose to work with us throughout the school year so it can potentially lead to a job throughout the school year.”
The main duties for the Summer Student Gallery Guards include taking down and setting up shows and art exhibitions and interacting with the public. Applicants should be “friendly, outgoing, happy to greet people, introduce them to the gallery and exhibitions we have,” said Walfish. This position is crucially important because Gallery Guards need to make sure that nothing goes wrong with the displays while protecting the artwork as well.
Other tasks for these openings include monitoring the space and making sure that lights are turned on and intact, making sure the labels on the artwork look good, overseeing that visitors are safe, and answering any questions visitors might have about the art exhibits.
Lastly, Walfish tells us that the students “don’t need to have any background in art, although it’s encouraged if students are interested in that to try out as a position because it’s a future career they might be interested in working in museums and this is a good start as a college student to see if it’s somewhere you want to be.”
Robert Konitzer, Technology Services’ Technology Specialist joined Lawrence in November of 2004 and states that summer student workers are an asset to the Lawrence community overall, because “we simply wouldn’t be able to get our work load done without having student workers during the summer.”
Students interested in applying for the open Summer Technology Assistant positions should expect to “spend a lot of time… with our recycling project… a lot of it is picking up or dropping off computers and other technology equipment,” Konitzer explained.
After the new academic year starts, students who decide to continue working at Technology Services need to process the new shipment of computers and tag them. “We have to get the information off of them, have to be [marked] with our engraving, and then as we set them up the students help us to deploy them,” Konitzer said.