2025 Exploring Transfer Residential Teaching Fellow Application Form

Each Residential Teaching Fellow will be assigned to one Exploring Transfer class but will be required to attend both classes. Residential Teaching Fellows will complete the readings and keep up with the assignments, hold evening office hours each weekday and Sunday afternoons, and facilitate communication between the instructors and students for their assigned class. Residential Teaching Fellows are also required to attend weekly faculty and staff meetings and are encouraged to participate in social events. Residential Teaching Fellows live in the dormitory with students to support the them throughout the summer program.

Residential Teaching Fellows will receive free room and board and will be paid $18 an hour for an estimated 37.5 hours a week.

Qualifications

Residential Teaching Fellows (RTFs) are graduates of the Exploring Transfer program or students/graduates of Vassar College. Residential Teaching Fellows must possess the following:

Evidence of academic excellence;
Marked proficiency in writing analytical essays;
Ability to work collaboratively with students, faculty and staff;
Strong communication and organizational skills;
Commitment to the philosophy and mission of the Exploring Transfer Program

Residential Teaching Fellows are required to be in residence full time (weekends included) June 12–July 26.

This application will reset if you close it without hitting the submit button.
All *asterisked questions are required.

Applications are due by April 11th.

Application Information

Name*

First Last

Address*

Street Address Address Line 2 City State ZIP Code

Phone*

Email*

Do you currently attend Vassar College?*

Yes
No

Have you previously participated in the Exploring Transfer Program?*

No
Yes (Student)
Yes (Counselor/Staff)

List all 2- and 4- year colleges that you have attended.*

Name of School	Major(s) or Concentration(s)	Class Year

Application Statements and Resume

Please upload the following in PDF format:

Educational Justice Statement: Please submit a 1-2 page statement about what you perceive to be the greatest obstacle to gaining access to higher education.

Rationale Statement: Please submit a 1–2 page statement describing why you want to be a teaching assistant in the Exploring Transfer Program this summer and why you would be a good fit for this program (this should include both your strengths and areas needing improvement).

Your most recent resume.

For items #1 & #2, please use Times New Roman, 12pt. font, 1-inch margins, and double-space your document.

Educational Justice Statement*

Accepted file types: pdf, Max. file size: 10 MB.

Rationale Statement*

Accepted file types: pdf, Max. file size: 10 MB.

Resume*

Accepted file types: pdf, Max. file size: 10 MB.

College Transcript

If you are not a Vassar Student we will need an unofficial transcript from any and all colleges you have attended.

Transcript*

Max. file size: 10 MB.

Reference

Please provide the name and email contact information of one reference who has taught or supervised you. Your reference may not be a peer or current student. Once you submit your application, a request for reference will automatically be sent to your reference. Please tell your reference that the reference request form was sent (your reference should check the spam folder if a request is not received). We will contact you if we do not receive a response from your reference.

Reference Name*

First Last

Reference Email Address*

Exploring Transfer 2025 Courses

Spaces of Displacement, Migration, and Livelihood in Africa

Instructors: Mariam Rashid, Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies Program, Vassar College, and Henry N.N. Bulley, Associate Professor of Geography & GIScience, Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York

Course Description: This course engages with topics on spatial thinking, resource extraction, conflict, climate disasters, forced displacement, and migration within the context of Africa and the continent's relationship with the rest of the world. Through social, political, and geographic analysis, the course examines and interrogates forces of displacement and migration within Africa, and how they are reproduced by global forces of neoliberalism, colonialism, and racialization, as well as climate change-related disasters. The course draws on interdisciplinary scholarship including films, interactive online maps, creative literature, and guest speakers, as well as more traditional academic mediums to explore the intricacies and intimacies of forced displacement and migration. In addition, the course introduces students to geospatial reasoning and mapping with ArcGIS StoryMaps. Through data visualization techniques, students will learn to map out geographies and stories of displacement as well as the resettlement of displaced communities.

The American Dream: Literary and Economic Landscapes

Instructors: Instructors: Sarah Pearlman, Professor of Economics, Vassar College, and Heather Ostman, Professor of English, Westchester Community College

Course Description: This interdisciplinary course will enable students to examine the representations of the American Dream within multiple nonfiction and fiction narratives. The emphasis will be on the literary constructions of the American Dream, using the discipline of economics as a critical lens for viewing those constructions. Through reading American stories and excerpts from longer narratives, students will study well-known texts from the eighteenth century through the twenty-first century, as they trace the ways that conventions of literature--narrative, character development, setting, plot, and more—develop, reinforce, and at times critique the construction and perpetuation of the American Dream through history. Students will read texts that range from those written by Benjamin Franklin, John Updike, Junot Diaz, among others. Each module will include an empirical component on measures of inequality and social mobility. Students will learn how data are used to quantify these measures and analyze their determinants, a competency that will leverage the critical discussion of the literary texts and provide economic context for the topics under discussion.

Select your assigned course preference*

NOTE: Students will only be assigned to one course, but will be required to attend both.