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The SES Americorps VISTA is a position sponsored by Campus Compact and AmeriCorps and hosted at Northwestern within Student Enrichment Services.  

The Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA program places AmeriCorps VISTA members in full service with our campus and community partners for a one-year period. During this year, members spend 35 hours per week on their host site’s campus or with one of that campus’s community partners to work on building systems and programs that support low-income college students and community members. The VISTA member’s work is to build capacity, meaning that rather than directly serving the community, they’re enhancing or creating systems, structures, and resources that support the direct anti-poverty work. Campus Compact functions as the central VISTA program hub, performing program administration, offering training and support to VISTA members and their projects, and connecting the work happening in individual projects both to similar work happening nationwide and back to AmeriCorps. 

• Welcome students to the SES office and when applicable, provide information regarding SES resources 

• Maintain the SES office space and work with SES Program Assistant to ensure any student needs for the space are addressed (i.e. snacks, decor needs, etc) 

• Co-create and manage the SES Newsletter and Instagram with the SES Associate Director  

• Manage SES’ in kind donation shelf and provide suggestions on donation types based on student feedback collected via a feedback form. 

Student Worker Infrastructure

• Conduct structured qualitative and quantitative assessment of the student worker pilot program and produce a summary report identifying scalability and training needs.
• Draft standardized student worker role descriptions and supervision guidelines.
• Develop structured onboarding and training modules.
• Create a comprehensive Student Worker Handbook.
• Pilot materials and finalize documentation for long-term use.

• Design and facilitate at least one structured focus group with low-income students to assess barriers to accessing employment and financial literacy resources, identify navigation challenges, and gather recommendations for improving clarity and communication; synthesize findings into a written summary to inform system-level improvements.
• Analyze frequently asked student questions and common inquiry patterns to identify confusion points and access barriers.
• Assess accessibility, navigation flow, and clarity of eligibility language across digital platforms
• Assess the effectiveness of Student Enrichment Services social media platforms and newsletter communications as pathways for low-income students to access resources by analyzing engagement metrics, click-through data, and content alignment
• Produce a written Website, Social Media, and Newsletter Resource Gap Analysis with prioritized recommendations.

• Collect and review utilization data and eligibility processes for Book for Cats and International Low-Income Student Support programs.
• Identify process breakdowns and points of student confusion.
• Develop and test recommendations to clarify communication and streamline processes.
• Produce a Financial Resource Access Improvement Brief for internal implementation and stakeholders
• Facilitate at least two structured student feedback sessions, develop themes, and report findings

• Attend orientation, weekly meetings, days of service, and trainings/retreats coordinated by Campus Compact 

• Complete data collection and reporting activities required by Campus Compact and AmeriCorps