Design & Fabrication Hub Coordinator

Location: Pasadena, California, USA

Part-time position (16 hrs/week, 10-month), starting August, 2021

Sequoyah School, an independent school founded in Pasadena, California in 1958, opened an innovative high school program in September of 2016. As an extension of our K-8 program, students are guided through the deep intellectual exploration of content following a student-centered, project-based pedagogy that offers relevant contexts for exploration and opportunities for application. Furthermore, the high school program builds upon the changemaking work practiced in the K-8 program by offering a Social Innovation Program (SIP). Sequoyah faculty help facilitate student teams that explore issues in the community via a design thinking process that encourages teachers and students to get off campus and spend time interacting with community members and organizations.

We are seeking a playful and imaginative educator with an expansive definition of “making” to help build a high school community that values design and fabrication as a vehicle for addressing the important social and environmental issues of our time. Reporting to the Director of Social Innovation, the Design & Fabrication Coordinator will collaborate with students, faculty, and administrators from a variety of disciplines to establish the new Design & Fabrication (D.Fab) Hub. The D.Fab Coordinator will help students become socially-engaged makers by giving them the prototyping skills necessary to realize their own long term, community-based initiatives. A successful coordinator will be someone who has experience teaching and is ready to conceive of a variety of learning opportunities that are exciting and accessible to both students who are inexperienced and curious about design and fabrication, as well as students who are experienced and ready to grow their skillset.

Position responsibilities include:

Instruction – provide lunch time and after school instruction, including drop-in seminars as well as week-long or month-long workshop series; advise students through hi-fi and lo-fi prototyping phases of their SIP work; provide opportunities for faculty professional development.
Program Design – design inclusive, differentiated pathways for student learning and engagement; create advisory board; design skill building scope and sequence; explore precedents at other institutions and organizations.
Program Management – manage skill badge program; create opportunities for peer mentoring and teaching; facilitate opportunities for student sharing and critique; promote opportunities for students to engage with design and fabrication beyond our campus.
Space Management – grow our library of tools, equipment, and materials; establish safety protocols.

We are seeking candidates who have: