UCI Storytelling Fellows

About UCI and Storytelling

The Undergraduate Community Initiative (UCI) works to create a campus where students flourish not only as scholars but as whole people. UCI serves as a meeting place—a commons of creativity, collaboration, reflection, and action—where students, faculty, staff, and alumni come together to build a shared intellectual life of the College. 

Part of the UCI’s programming includes Our Stories, a student-driven, peer-facilitated initiative that brings together undergraduates through storytelling. Students connect with community members, staff, and each other by responding to a loose prompt. The ethic of Our Stories offers a mode of campus conversation distinct from dialogue, centering personal perspective, connection, and experiences. In its second year, Our Stories is looking to expand programming. Potential projects include forging partnerships with community storytelling organizations, producing multimedia content, and introducing storytelling circles to other campus spaces. 

About the Fellowship 

The primary responsibility of a UCI storytelling fellow is to invest in the storytelling ethic. The position is recommended for students from any Columbia undergraduate school interested in the potential of stories as a method of development and understanding for both one’s self and our shared community. Perfect candidates may come from any experience level with storytelling, but are eager to learn, explore, and expand the practice here at Columbia. 

Deadline to submit your application is September 18.

Storytelling fellows help support UCI Our Stories programming by: 

❖ Attending and participating in storytelling events and circles 

❖ Training in Our Stories ethics and facilitation 

❖ Facilitating co-sponsored circles in their community spaces 

❖ Potentially featuring in and helping produce Our Stories multimedia 

❖ Providing ideas, insight, and feedback on storytelling events 

Commitment 

Storytelling fellows will attend storytelling events (ca. 2x per month) and participate in regular meetings about programming. Fellows will participate in one event per month that they design or otherwise facilitate. As this is an unpaid position, fellows are not expected to dedicate significant time outside of meetings to logistics or planning, and some scheduling flexibility is expected. 

To Apply 

In 3-5 paragraphs, please respond to the following questions: 

❖ What draws you to a fellowship about storytelling, and how do you envision contributing to Our Stories? 

❖ What kinds of spaces, conversations, or forms of community do you wish existed more fully at Columbia? 

❖ Using the format of “Moment, Movement, Details” (In your story, explain: what happened (moment), what changed (movement), what stands out (details)) tell us a quick story. 

Please email your response to Andrew Jungclaus, Assistant Dean of Community and Culture, at [email protected] by Friday, September 18.