Executive Director of Institutional Research
Excelsior College
Excelsior College, a regionally accredited, private, nonprofit institution of higher learning, seeks applicants for the position of Executive Director, Institutional Research to work within the Strategy and Institutional Effectiveness unit.The Executive Director of Institutional Research is responsible for organizing and managing the daily activities of the institutional research office including oversight of an agenda of research and analysis that supports decision-making and college-wide strategic planning.
Responsibilities include: working with faculty, staff, and administrators to identify data needs; implementing a research and analysis program to address the identified needs; supervising a professional staff, and cultivating a culture of continuous quality improvement. The Executive Director also develops policies and procedures to ensure data integrity and appropriate access to institutional information. This individual works collaboratively with college leaders to coordinate data collection and reporting activities.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Provide oversight of an agenda of research, modeling, analytics, and related administrative tasks to support decision making and strategic planning.
- Develops and maintains policies, procedures and practices to ensure data integrity and appropriate access to institutional information.
- Works with faculty, staff and administrators to identify data needs; designs and implements a research and analysis program to address identified needs.
- Develops and administers survey research instruments.
- Specifies procedures for data collection and management.
- Interacts with the College’s SIS system to run queries and extract relevant data.
- Determines the most appropriate statistical analyses for existing data sets.
- Ensures the production of reliable and accurate statistics for internal and external consumption.
- Interprets statistical analyses for technical and non-technical audiences.
- Conducts original studies on factors influencing success in distance education.
- Prepares formal narrative reports for dissemination within the College community.
- Prepares oral and written presentations of research findings as needed for internal and external audiences.
- Cultivates and supports a culture of decision-making based on evidence.
- Overnight travel is occasionally required.
Supervisory Responsibilities
Position carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization’s policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance and resolving problems.
- Supervises the Director of Surveys & Reporting, Senior Research Analysts, and a Database Developer.
- Manages purchases relevant to research initiatives and maintains institutional research budget.
Qualification Requirements
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Qualifications include the following:
- An earned doctoral degree from an accredited institution in a social science discipline, statistics, higher education, or a related empirical research field.
- Demonstrated knowledge of quantitative research methods, research design, and statistical analysis including multivariate statistics, survey methodology, and psychometric theory.
- Demonstrated skill in use of statistical programming in R, SAS, SPSS or other language. (R preferred.); Skills in SQL are also desired.
- Experience in research design and implementation in an institution of higher learning.
- Demonstrated ability to cogently summarize research findings and their implications, both orally and in written reports.
- Ability to manage a multitude of ongoing processes where accuracy and timeliness are essential.
- Demonstrated ability to work in a collaborative research environment.
- Strong working knowledge of statistical, spreadsheet, database, and word processing software packages.
- Excellent listening, analytical, writing, and communication skills.
- Excellent time management/prioritization skills.
- Familiarity with adult learners and distance learning environments is desired.