The American Prison Writing Archive is the first fully searchable digital archive of non-fiction essays and poetry by incarcerated people writing about their experience inside US prisons and jails today. The APWA welcomes applications from conscientious and compassionate applicants for a full-time, in-person Program Assistant position. This is a two-year, grant-funded position.

Working with a hybrid (remote/in-person) team including full-time APWA staff, faculty co-directors, and Sheridan Libraries staff, the Program Assistant will serve as a crucial fully on-site team member for the Archive at its new institutional home at Johns Hopkins University.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

• Primary tasks will include reading and entering data about new submissions of non-fiction writing by incarcerated authors, labeling and filing hard copies of submissions, sorting and tracking incoming mail, writing and mailing timely responses to correspondence from people incarcerated across the US, and responding to email queries to the APWA.
• The APWA seeks applicants who are both detail-oriented and passionate about carceral studies and social justice, as well as projects to ethically and humanely represent the experience and expertise of incarcerated people.
  
• We strongly encourage those with prior legal system involvement to apply and consider lived experiences of incarceration to be relevant to the duties of this position. Applicants may contact the APWA team at PrisonWitness@jh.edu with any further questions or considerations before applying.

• Reads essays and poetry that bear witness to firsthand, sometimes traumatic, experiences of incarceration and the criminal justice system, checking for adherence to submission guidelines.

• Follows established workflows for creating and maintaining careful records of submission metadata, physical material filing location, and correspondence with incarcerated authors.

• Handles submission materials with care, labeling and preparing them for filing in appropriate location.

• Mails timely responses to information requests, submissions, and other correspondence from people incarcerated across the U.S., writing with compassion and consideration for the circumstances and challenges they face.

• Coordinates with campus mail services for large amounts of incoming and outgoing mail.

• Coordinates with library staff and contractors for the transportation of materials.

• Checking for and correcting errors in metadata entry.

‍Minimum Qualifications‍

• High School Diploma/GED.
  

• Two years office/clerical experience.
  

• Additional education may substitute for required experience, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula High school diploma required, minimum of a two-year degree is preferred.

‍Preferred Qualifications‍

• Bachelor's Degree in related field.
• Spanish language fluency preferred.

• Two years professional experience working in an archive, museum, or similar.

• Demonstrated cultural competency and experience engaging with Africana / African American / Latinx and LGBTQ communities, as well as legal system-involved individuals.

• Demonstrated interest in carceral studies and/or related social justice projects.

• Demonstrated understanding of the principles and ethics of using oral history, first person essays from vulnerable communities, or other qualitative or narrative data collections

• Demonstrated adaptability and flexibility, as well as willingness to expand into new areas as the Archive develops and grows.

‍Special Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Excellent attention to detail and quality control.
• Demonstrated discretion in handling confidential documents.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated excellent time management skills, organizational skills, and demonstrated ability to meet deadlines.
• Experience with data entry in Excel, Google Sheets, Airtable, or other spreadsheet applications.
• Experience with adding content to Wordpress sites.
• Experience with office and online collaboration software (such as Microsoft Office Suite, Google Drive Suite, Adobe Acrobat, Slack, or Teams)
• Experience with office technology, including for mass mailings (scanning hardware, printer, copier)
• Excellent interpersonal skills to collaborate and work effectively with a team.
• Understanding of ethical research using ethnographic, oral history, archives, memoirs/diaries/letters.

Application Requirements

In addition to your resume, please upload your answers to the following questions in the place of a cover letter.

1. Share briefly how your experiences and perspectives will influence your work on a project that seeks to center the experiences of people who are or were incarcerated. [~125 words or fewer]

2. Three tasks of this role are (1) reading and responding to a large number of firsthand experiences of incarceration, (2) typing up and quality checking detailed records of submissions, and (3) communicating with a team to collaboratively address problems. Which task do you feel you excel at? Please share why. Which task is something you would like to improve at? How would you approach that? [~125 words or fewer]

3. Is there anything else you would like to share with us about yourself or this application? [Optional]

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