5 Administrative Roles
At the start of the TLH grant period, the Faculty Co-Directors and Administrative Director selected an Executive Director (Research Associate) who drafted a comprehensive strategic plan that included an internal program assessment plan and a plan for spending the program budget. TLH then hired three College Assistants: a Budget Officer; Program Assessment Staff Person; and a Director of Digital Communications. In its second year, we added a Research Assistant to our staff to help carry out administrative and research responsibilities relevant to the grant. In its third year, TLH hired two new College Assistants to carry out special projects: a Student Summit Coordinator and a TLH in a Box Coordinator.
Hiring
Below are some common questions we asked candidates for these roles and some common criteria we used to determine who was the best fit.
To make the interview experience as seamless, supportive, and welcoming as possible, we sent interview questions to the candidates in advance and encouraged them to think about and prepare answers to our questions.
- Please tell us about your prior experiences working in office settings, any similar work you’ve done at CUNY or outside CUNY in an administrative office. (You might offer a very brief summary, no more than 1-2 minutes, expanding on anything you’d like to highlight from your resume.)
- How do you approach learning something new?
- How do you approach managing multiple, ongoing projects, and stay organized?
- What controls do you put in place to check your work?
- What do you do when you encounter an error or problem?
- Please tell us about your experiences leading a project (something you’ve organized from scratch) and working with diverse and inclusive teams (thinking of diversity of all kinds; e.g., neurodiverse, etc.)
- Part of TLH’s mission includes promoting equitable, student-centered teaching designed for the rich diversity of CUNY students, and greater recognition for the importance of teaching. How do your interests align with TLH’s mission?
- How do you approach sharing your work with others, collaborating with others?
- What do you do when you encounter a roadblock in communication and/or collaboration?
- How might this role help you in your future career?
Staff Roles and Job Descriptions
Each of our six TLH staff members has written their own description of their job and duties below. Under each description is a link to download the original job description for the role, so you can see what the call for applications looked like and get a sense of how each person shaped their role once they were on the job.
Administrative Director
The Administrative Director of TLH is responsible for the overall administration of the program, excluding program curriculum.
Duties include:
- Serving as co-author of the Mellon Foundation grant proposal that funded TLH
- Communicating with Mellon Foundation about TLH
- Serving as co-author on all reports to the Mellon Foundation
- Communicating with CUNY system leaders about TLH
- Oversight and design of the structural aspects of TLH
- Hiring of staff for TLH
- Oversight and final approval for TLH’s budget
- Supervision and mentorship of TLH’s Research Associate and Associate Director and Communications Director
Communication Director
The communication director is responsible for creating and publishing public-facing communications about the program. Their main duties include keeping information up to date on websites, social media, and mailing lists, creating graphics or working with a graphic designer on marketing campaigns, and being a point of contact for program administrators and fellows who need help publicizing events and opportunities. They are also responsible for creating lines of communications for faculty fellows collaborating in cohorts and working groups, and surveying faculty fellows about relevant work during and after their fellowships.
Under supervision of the Executive Director, the Communication Director works to ensure that the activities of the program are communicated in an accessible way, consistent with brand guidelines of the program and the university.
Duties include:
- Publishing program information, including faculty photos and biographies, opportunities, events, news, publications, and other resources on the program’s websites
- Creating social media campaigns for program news, events and opportunities, including copywriting and editing, and designing graphics as needed
- Ensuring that all communications meet web content accessibility guidelines for color contrast and screen reader compatibility
- Creating email campaigns to share program news, events, and opportunities
- Distributing program news, events, and opportunities to related university departments
- Creating forums for communication within faculty fellow cohorts
- Acting as a liaison between faculty fellows and ASL interpreters and CART providers as needed for events
- Providing technical support during faculty seminars and public knowledge events
- Providing input on survey questions for students and faculty and analyzing responses
- Assisting with design feedback, proofreading, and final preparation of annual reports for print and digital distribution
Postdoctoral Research Associate
The TLH Postdoctoral Research Associate is responsible for TLH program strategic plan development, implementation, oversight, and grant reporting. The Research Associate supervises TLH part-time staff, plans and organizes the Transformative Speaker Series; mentors faculty fellows as they carry out their public knowledge projects; and mentors students as they prepare for the Student Summit. In addition, they design and conduct qualitative research related to transformative teaching and learning practices.
Duties include:
- Contributes insights and strategic thinking to program development and implementation, including developing program websites and a communications plan in the first year of the grant and cultivating a strong media presence;
- Manages all aspects of the grant supporting the project, including financial tracking and regular reporting as stipulated by the Mellon Foundation;
- Oversees and facilitates the selection process for the TLH Faculty Fellows and ensures timely payments and communications to the selected TLH Faculty
- Monitors expenditures relative to the grant budget to ensure targets are met;
- Oversees, administers, and contributes to development of a community spanning humanities departments, Centers for Teaching and Learning and faculty at multiple institutions;
- Contributes to planning and implementation of informational sessions, pedagogy workshops, open seminars, institutes and other TLH events;
- Conducts related research and presents findings at relevant academic conferences;
- Manages assessment process and oversees consultant in the development of various evaluative instruments to study the impact of the grant;
- Represents the work of the grant in relevant online and print scholarly publications and encourages the TLH Faculty Fellows to publish about the outcomes of the grant;
- Ensures that all work of the grant exemplifies principles of equity and diversity.
Librarian and Research Assistant
The Librarian and Research Assistant provides administrative support for the TLH initiative, keeping the team on track for short term and long-term goals and deadlines. They also provide research support for scholarly publications, including editing and offering feedback on articles, conducting literature reviews, and indexing books for publication. This staff member runs meetings, ensuring the team has assistance on their projects, and provides faculty seminar and public event technical and background support.
Duties include:
- Set agendas, send out reminders, and run the team’s business and administrative Meetings
- Keep track of short-term and long-term timelines; remind team of upcoming deadlines to keep everyone on track
- Work on annual report content to Mellon Foundation and the CUNY Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost
- Take notes during events and write up and post recaps of events
- Send agendas and reminder for faculty fellows seminars
- Communicate with upcoming speakers to plan out logistics; connect with venues and services to prepare for event needs
- Collaborate on agenda for faculty seminars focused on active learning and student-centered pedagogies
- Conduct literature reviews and archival research for scholarly humanities articles in environmental studies; abolitionist history; American literature; and engaging and antiracist pedagogy
- Co-lead office hours to support fellows in their teaching and upcoming collaborative projects
- Collaborate with CUNY librarian to lead workshop on Creative Commons Licenses for faculty fellows
- Develop application and review process for student advisory board, led nine-person team to review applications
- Review faculty fellow applications and staff applications, interview and select candidates
Program Assistant
The TLH Program Assistant will be responsible for assisting the Executive Director in TLH program implementation and grant reporting. This includes acting as a liason between departments and offices. They are required to undertake various tasks that would monitor and evaluate the program’s performance.
Duties include:
- Prepared budget estimates for Personnel and Other Expenses utilizing $2 million
- Create mailing list that include individuals across CUNY Colleges for publishing job openings
- Assist in interviewing candidates
- Mail reports and technology to CUNY faculty
- Evaluate event participation statistics and collect feedback from event attendees.
- Process requests for transfer of funds for CUNY students and faculties.
- Submit evidence to settle procurement and travel credit card transactions
- Draft travel Authorizations and submit travel Expense Reports
- Submit requests for requisitions and track their dispatch
- Coordinate with vendors and speakers to process agreements and submit invoices.
TLH-in-a-Box Coordinator
The TLH-in-a-Box Coordinator assists the TLH Research Associate with creating the website, TLH-in-a-Box during the final year of the program. The site is an open educational resource that shares the program with the general public and shares resources necessary for other institutions and teachers to recreate the program in their institution, department or wider educational community.
Duties include:
- Curating and designing an open educational resource website
- Gathering documents and resources needed to recreate the program
- Working with the Research Associate to craft written content for the website
- Crafting a form and gathering sample work from faculty fellows who participated in the program
- Copy-writing and editing text with the Research Associate
- Creating organizational charts and graphs to illustrate aspects of the program (i.e. organizational structure)
Student Summit Coordinator
The Student Summit Coordinator assists the TLH Research Associate with activities related to the conception, development, and realization of the TLH CUNY Student Summit, a full-day virtual conference that aims to highlight student voices as they respond to unmet needs within the university.
Duties include:
- Running six workshop sessions with the 12-student Student Advisory Board to lay down the groundwork for the Student Summit, as well as speak about literature and TLH’s Transformative Speaker Series
- Crafting a Call For Proposals based on the work of the Student Advisory Board
- Reading through and accepting Student Summit applications alongside the TLH team
- Assisting in the organization of the Student Summit schedule and coordination with 44 students and their respective mentors
- Providing one-on-one student mentoring in preparation for the conference
- Chairing panels and running activities during the Student Summit