Student Opportunities
Throughout the year, COACHE offers opportunities for highly motivated students. Potential responsibilities across the various positions include: launching faculty surveys, analyzing data, providing project and event assistance, and supporting communications and outreach.
Please apply for the job descriptions below by sending your resume and cover letter to coache@gse.havard.edu, with "COACHE Internship" in the subject line and addressed to Todd Benson. Please be sure to read, at the bottom of this page, more information about working at COACHE.
Research Assistants
We have ongoing, part-time opportunities available for doctoral students with proficiency in statistical software, such as SPSS or R, and in Microsoft Excel. We are seeking knowledge of research methods, evidence of working within a professional setting, strong attention to detail, and excellent communication skills. We will be looking for a strong indication of independent research experience and/or applied experience with qualitative and quantitative research methods, especially in survey-based research. Please send an email to coache@gse.havard.edu with "COACHE Research Assistant" in the subject line and addressed to Kiernan Mathews.
Internships
Survey Administration (7 to 14 hours per week expected)
This internship provides critical support to the Associate Director for the administration of the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey and Faculty Retention & Exit Study. This position supports the coordination and execution of the survey administration process, including:
- IRB applications;
- data file reviews;
- CRM database (Salesforce) management;
- communication with institutional research officers, deans, provosts and faculty;
- monitoring of survey response rates and execution of nonresponse mitigation strategies;
- assessment of partner satisfaction with the COACHE process.
The individual in this role will learn the “ins and outs” of how to manage a large-scale survey research project with deadlines and deliverables. The intern will have the opportunity to be in frequent contact with institutional research and faculty affairs officers at a variety of colleges.
Qualifications: Most Survey Administration interns are current graduate students with a bachelor’s degree, but three years of related experience and evidence of project management skills may substitute for credentials.
Partner Engagement & Communications (7 to 14 hours per week expected)
This internship supports the recruitment, marketing, and communication functions of COACHE’s initiatives. This position works closely with the Marketing and Engagement Manager to develop, curate, and disseminate communications to current and prospective partner institutions as well as to broader audiences. Primarily the work may include:
- short blog posts about the best practices of COACHE partners;
- practitioner-oriented research briefings about the latest scholarship in faculty affairs;
- review, inventory and distillation of COACHE publications into multi-format content;
- a searchable content directory;
- assistance in the development and execution of cross-channel content promotion plans.
The individual in this role will be exposed to the latest scholarship on and the best practices in faculty development across U.S. higher education. The intern will have the opportunity to interview senior faculty affairs officers at a variety of colleges and universities.
Qualifications: Most Partner Engagement interns are current graduate students with a bachelor’s degree, but three years of related experience and strong writing samples may substitute for credentials.
Data Integrity (14 to 21 hours per week expected)
This internship supports both the research and communications functions of COACHE. Experience with Excel and Salesforce (or similar relational database) and the ability to work with minimal supervision are necessary to maintain our robust database of information on COACHE partner institutions. The work may include:
Recruitment and Engagement Projects
- report creation in Salesforce to monitor quality control of data fields, and correction as needed;
- web searches for and inputting of peer institutions using various sources and methods;
- review and management of lists of existing and new contacts at potential research partner sites;
- quality assurance checks on the data in Salesforce, including contacts, accounts, invoicing, etc.
Research Data Projects
- integration of longitudinal institutional data in the COACHE dataset;
- review and alignment of data files from partner institutions;
- learning to extract data from IPEDS concerning current and prospective partner institutions;
- implement quality assurance processes for survey administration and reporting.
The individual in this role will learn about various roles and institutional characteristics in higher ed markets. The intern will have the opportunity to learn about the Salesforce (CRM) database and to gain progressively more exposure to postsecondary data sets.
Qualifications: Data integrity interns should be current undergraduate students or have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in hand. Related data curation experience and a demonstrated attention to detail are preferred.
About Working as an Intern at COACHE
What is COACHE? The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) is a research-practice partnership based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For more than 10 years, COACHE has collected survey data from faculty at more than 250 institutions—colleges, universities, community colleges and systems—and worked with their academic leaders to create the conditions in which faculty do their best work.
Who works here? COACHE recruits interns and research assistants from a wide range of backgrounds and interests: consulting, publishing, K-12 education, and of course, higher ed. They are strong writers, quantitative and qualitative analysts, and careful data curators. Those adept with SPSS, Salesforce, and Excel usually have an advantage.
Where do they go? Our interns and research assistants take paths into research and practice. Many choose graduate school as their next step; many more go into academic administration, consulting practices, and public policy.
What are your working hours? At COACHE, interns generally work between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., typically over a 7- to 14-hour work week. Research assistants generally work at least 21-hour weeks. Interns and RAs should create an appropriate work schedule with their supervisor. We understand that academics take priority and anticipate some times during the semester will be busier than others, so interns are welcome to occasionally rearrange their scheduled hours with sufficient notice to their supervisor. Conversely, if there are slow times in the academic calendar (e.g. spring break), interns are welcome to pick up additional hours, assuming there is work available.
Are internships paid? Our interns are paid competitive hourly rates that depend on the skills required of the work and the breadth of experience brought by the candidates. Internships do not include the complement of Harvard benefits, but our salaried research assistantships do. COACHE does not offer academic credit to interns.
How can I learn more about COACHE? For general information, browse our website, including this two-minute introduction to COACHE. For an idea of what interns here at produce, you can view this presentation to Harvard faculty (and subsequent discussion) by a prior graduate intern about his COACHE work, or this webcast by a doctoral student who used our data for work presented at AERA.
Visit our Contact page to submit your internship application to COACHE.