Hi everyone,

The Wikipedia Ambassador Program - consisting of volunteers who support professors and students on Wikipedia-editing class assignments - is currently recruiting for a new, super important leadership role called the "Wikipedia Regional Ambassadors," and I would encourage you to apply! If you enjoy being in a coordinator, leader, manager, organizer, and/or facilitator role, and if you believe in free knowledge and Wikipedia's potential in education, you will really like this role. More details - including role descriptions, qualifications, benefits, time commitments, and information about how to apply - are available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Regional_Ambassadors.


A bit more background information for those of you less familiar with the Ambassador program:

The Wikipedia Ambassador Program is an effort to help new Wikipedia users and reach out to new potential Wikipedia contributors—particularly professors who want to incorporate Wikipedia into the classroom and their students who are assigned to edit Wikipedia. Many professors around the United States (and abroad) have started using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, and are assigning their students to edit or create Wikipedia articles related to the subject the students are learning in class (professors from Harvard, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and a large number of other universities have already come on board). Wikipedia Ambassadors work closely with these professors to design effective Wikipedia-editing assignments, and then teach students in these classes throughout the semester how to edit Wikipedia. All Wikipedia Ambassadors have to go through a screening/selection process and a training.

Wikipedia Regional Ambassadors are crucial leaders in the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. The Regional Ambassador role is distinct from the regular Ambassador role mentioned above - Regional Ambassadors lead, coordinate, and facilitate the work of the regular Ambassadors, and are also responsible for recruiting professors (to incorporate Wikipedia-editing into their classes) and recruiting regular Ambassadors. In other words, whereas regular Ambassadors focus on teaching and mentoring students, Regional Ambassadors focus on coordinating, recruiting, organizing, and leading. This is a new (volunteer) role that provides significant leadership development and networking opportunities. The time commitment is approximately 3-5 hours a week.


I would highly encourage you to apply. You'll notice on the page linked above that we've divided the U.S. into 12 "regions," each of which needs one or more Regional Ambassadors.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me: alin [at] wikimedia [dot] org.

Thank you!

Annie Lin
Campus Team Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
alin@wikimedia.org