Job Description
General Description
CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG): About Us
The CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance has a mission to improve the financing, delivery, and measurement of critical public services through research, technical assistance, and education. We lead projects aimed at reforming the criminal justice system, measuring urban inequality, expanding the reach of social service providers, and more. Each project has a dedicated team of research and policy experts who collaborate closely with internal and external organizations. For more information about ISLG, please visit www.islg.cuny.edu.
Our Goals for Diversity and Inclusion
We strive to foster an office environment and an approach to work that welcomes and respects different perspectives, backgrounds, and life experiences. We are working towards our goal of recruiting and retaining staff, interns and advisory group members who are diverse in terms of race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, veteran status, socioeconomic status, disability, and justice system involvement.
Who we are looking for
ISLG is recruiting up to two (2) CUNY undergraduate and/or graduate student interns to work on a variety of research projects including:
- Pretrial Justice Reform – Interns will provide data, analytic, and research support to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), an initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. Data and research has been a key feature of the initiative since its inception and CUNY ISLG serves as the primary partner across the SJC network processing and managing criminal legal system data provided by partner sites across the U.S. Additionally, CUNY ISLG manages the SJC Research Consortium, a pre-qualified group of research organizations that conduct research studies developed by CUNY ISLG to support knowledge development across the broader initiative - documenting what we have learned across jurisdictions about pretrial justice reform and systems change. An intern will support these two broader workstreams in the following ways:
- Data Management and Analytic Work: Interns will work closely with ISLG researchers and data scientists to translate practical data analysis needs and supports into programming work. This work may include: 1) developing syntax to process, validate, and standardize administrative data files; and 2) conducting quantitative analysis (descriptive statistics, etc.) across administrative data files.
- Research Support: Interns will support efforts to summarize findings within specific SJC research priority areas (for example, equity, public safety, and pretrial decision-making) from relevant research projects and published materials. The aim will be to draw out larger lessons learned for the criminal legal field and for jurisdictions as they work to sustain reform efforts. These summative materials may be utilized in various policy and issue briefs.
- Hate Crime Detection, Reporting, and Prosecution – ISLG is currently leading two research projects, funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), related to the detection, reporting, and prosecution of hate crimes in New York City and across the country. The intern will assist in conducting background research on hate crimes and community responses to them; attend local community meetings with project partners and take notes; gather available administrative data on hate crimes and identify areas of overlap and/or gaps; research the latest methodological approaches to analyzing hate crimes including social network analysis; and prepare presentations for academic and community audiences.
The core of this internship is creating community and peer-to-peer learning among ISLG interns; to foster community we will have bi-weekly, in-person convenings that will cover a range of topics such as relationship building, project management, etc.
We are hiring interns to work at ISLG for 10 weeks during the summer months. Interns will have a hybrid work schedule and report to a designated ISLG staff member. Interns will work on a range of tasks within the project(s) listed above as well as others not listed here. Tasks that the interns may be responsible for include:
- Writing syntax to process, validate and standardize case-level administrative data files for analysis;
- Attending local community meetings with project partners and taking notes;
- Conducting literature reviews around a variety of topics;
- Synthesizing research publications across SJC priority areas, including those identified above;
- Contributing to public-facing written products, including policy and issue briefs, and presentations for academic and community audiences; and
- Other tasks as needed to support ISLG’s work.
Other Duties
Qualifications
Qualifications
- Currently enrolled in one of the following degree programs at a CUNY school or have graduated from such a program within the last year: criminal justice, sociology, or other social science field;
- Possess demonstrated experience carrying out tasks related to the collection, management, and dissemination of complex source data (i.e., writing syntax to import, validate, normalize, merge, restructure, and/or clean data files for analysis);
- Proficiency in one or more of the following programming languages: R, Stata, SPSS;
- Understanding of both quantitative and qualitative research methods and analysis;
- Experience and/or interest in community engagement approaches to research;
- Ability to summarize key findings and synthesize results across multiple research publications; and
- Ability to communicate work and with team members in an accessible manner
We would love to hear from you, if you are/have:
- Ability to commit to a consistent schedule of approximately 35 hours per week for the internship period (i.e., May 28 – End of July)
- Ability to attend 10 peer-to-peer credentialed in-person weekly sessions on Wednesday’s from 9:30am-11:30am
- Excellent time management skills and experience working in deadline-driven environments
- Ability to prioritize and work on a number of tasks simultaneously
- Flexibility about projects and workflow
- Passion about equitable state and local policy solutions to pressing social issues
ISLG is open to flexibility on the requirements above, but we would expect candidates to fit most of the items described.
How to Apply
To apply for an internship, you will need to submit the following:
- A cover letter that includes your area(s) of interest, how you hope to contribute to ISLG’s mission, and your proposed start and end dates and work schedule. (1 page limit)
- A resume or curriculum vitae. (1 page limit)
- The contact information for 2 references (preferably professors or former supervisors of employment relating to the work of ISLG).
- Unofficial transcripts (optional but strongly recommended).
All applicants will receive an additional ISLG’s Internship Program application form (which will be emailed to all candidates).
All application documents must be in English and submitted in a single PDF to info@islg.cuny.edu by the deadline listed below. Please use the subject line “Summer Student Internship Application.” Incomplete application packets will not be considered.
Application review will commence on March 25, 2024 and continue until the positions are filled.
RFCUNY Benefits
RFCUNY Employee Benefits and AccrualsAbout the Research Foundation
The Research Foundation of The City University of New York (RFCUNY) was established as a not-for-profit educational corporation chartered by the State of New York in 1963. RFCUNY supports CUNY faculty and staff in identifying and obtaining external support (pre-award) from government and private sponsors and is responsible for the administration of all such funded programs (post-award).
RFCUNY stands between CUNY’s principal investigators (PIs) and the sponsors who support them and strives to fulfill its essential responsibilities to both groups. Working closely with individual PIs and Grants Officers on the campuses, RFCUNY oversees employment, accounting, audit, reporting, purchasing, and special responsibilities that include management of a planned giving program; liaison with governmental agencies and foundations; negotiation of agreements; facility construction and renovation; protection and commercialization of intellectual property; and compliance with applicable standards in research involving human subjects, animal care, environmental and radiological safety, and conflicts of interest.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Key Features
CUNY Institute for State and Local Gover
Full Time
$20.00-$25.00
Apr 13, 2024 (Or Until Filled)