CURI Academic Year Student Researcher Braun

Job Title: CURI Academic Year Researcher (WS-NST2)

Classification: Student Employee (non-exempt)

Name and Address of Employer: St. Olaf College 1520 St. Olaf Ave Northfield MN 55057

If the position requires the student to work off campus provide the name and address here:

Department Name: CURI

Unit Number (5 digits): 16118

Length of Position: See Employment Authorization

Contact Person/Supervisor: Faculty advisor listed in CURI Elevator database

Wage Range: $14.50/hour

Description of the Position: (Purpose of the Position): Students work together with a faculty member on scholarly or artistic projects.

This project aims to study how unequal representation within state legislators impacted economic development in the early 1900s US. Prior to the 1960s legislative district were not required to be of equal population size often leading to less populous rural counties having greater representation within state legislatures. We use the variation in relative representation within and across states to evaluate how unequal representation impacted legislative decision making and the adoption of progressive era policies. Students will assist with the construction of a dataset matching legislative boundaries to enumeration district and county boundaries as well as merging these files with demographic datasets in R.

Requirements: High levels of attention to detail and organizational skills are required for this project. Prior experience with R and GIS software are preferred but not necessary. Prior knowledge of the political economy of the early-1900s US is not necessary.

Contact info:

Start Date: September 10 2026
End Date: December 11 2026

Transferable Skills: Research and presentations.

Duties and Responsibilities: Each project has its own timing (number of hours per week and number of weeks) as determined by the individual faculty mentor. See the CURI Digital Olaf databasefor individual project descriptions and details.

Qualifications: (Education/Experience/Skills) A student interested in applying for the CURI academic year program must be enrolled as an on-campus St. Olaf student. There is no GPA requirement that must be met in order to apply for the program but a students academic record will be considered during the selection process. Skills are dependent on individual projects.

If you dont have a work award and select No to the application questions your application will be automatically rejected by the system. If you apply and are rejected please contact Erin Eltonga to resolve this for you.

This job description is for general information purposes. It is not intended to list all duties and responsibilities of the position. This job description is subject to change at any time by St. Olaf College with or without prior notice.