"Associate Director of Operations, Penn Institute for Urban Research"

Job Description

The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is a campus-wide institute dedicated to fostering increased understanding of cities through an interdisciplinary approach to urban issues. The Associate Director of Operations at the Penn Institute for Urban Research plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the Institute's daily operations. This position has the primary responsibility for administering all financial and administrative operations, producing events and conferences, and managing special communications (social campaigns, special reports, etc) and research projects (manage aspects of grant-funded and gift-funded research projects). Working closely with the Managing Director, this position will implement the Institute's research and dissemination goals by administering grants, managing research resources and processes, and engaging with internal and external stakeholders including high-profile speakers and donors.

The ideal candidate will possess a blend of operational and managerial acumen, expertise in urban/development issues, and strategic thinking. Candidates should have a proven track record of working to connect organizational strategy to outcomes with expertise in financial management, event management, communications, and constituent engagement and customer service. Additionally, a successful candidate will play a vital role in shaping the Institute's impact and fostering collaboration across academic and professional networks and working with donors and grantors.

Job Responsibilities

• Financial Administration: Oversee the Institute's $1.5M annual budget and $10M endowment fund, including budgeting, tracking, modeling, and reporting. Review all current and new gifts (term and endowment), grants, and other revenue sources on a regular basis to ensure spending matches budget plans. Innovate and optimize new internal financial models for gifts, grants, while navigating and integrating with internal and external business units. Provide budget and programmatic guidance and administrative direction for the Institute. Implement the Institute's grant and contract responsibilities, acting as liaison with Provost financial team and ORS, including proposal development, budgeting, compliance, reporting; providing input on expense tracking, payroll, procurement, and all other financial matters.
• Event Management: Produce all Institute events including lecture series, annual Urban Leadership Awards, visiting scholar events, executive committee sessions, advisory board meetings, expert roundtables, conferences, student research showcase events, and other special events. This entails event preparation, execution, communications (invitations, announcements, advertising, social media campaigns, post-meeting follow-up, etc.), travel arrangements, vendor management, scheduling, and technology oversight for events. Produce all virtual, hybrid, and recorded meetings and manage audience engagement for national and international audiences. Post-event responsibilities include proceedings / special reports, and documentation for internal publications such as the website, the monthly Urban Link, bi-annual newsletter, and the Annual Report.
• Operations: Manage all aspects of Penn IUR's operations including office facilities, resource procurement and allocation of space and equipment needs for research activities, events, staff, faculty, and students. Serve as the general internal and external point of contact for the university, and general public. Manage conference room reservations; maintain office supplies; provide general clerical support, including coordinating large scale mailings, scheduling meetings, maintaining office reception, etc.
• Supervision: Supervise the Institute's student workers and temporary research assistants. Create and manage job postings for student assistance on the Student Employment Management System (SEMS); report hours for all part-time and temporary staff each week. Penn IUR typically has 1 - 3 student workers per semester working on a diversity of projects from research, writing, web maintenance, graphic design, list-serve maintenance, social media updates, and more; coordinate the student workers' efforts to meet overall Institute needs. For all new hires, manage HR process (record creation, payroll, salary distributions).
• Strategy: Implement strategies to effectively operationalize the Institute's research and research-dissemination goals. Utilize data-driven approaches to ensure resources are aligned with strategic priorities.
• Research Projects: Penn IUR has numerous grant and gift-funded research projects. The Associate Director of Operations will, as needed, manage key aspects of grant operations including, but not limited to organizing meetings of grant collaborators, produce special reports, and manage student workers.
• Communications: Collaborate with the Communications Director to keep social media up to date and develop innovate campaigns, and continually improve website performance for optimal audience engagement and research dissemination. Update the Penn IUR website regularly with events, news posts, publications, and updates to people profiles as needed. Penn IUR is interested in expanding its podcast offerings; research and collaborate on the future of podcasting at Penn IUR to further expand the Institute's reach and engagement across constituent groups and geographies.
• Student program support: Provide support for Penn IUR's undergraduate student programs - the Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium (UURC) and the Penn IUR Fellows in Urban Leadership Program - as well as events and special programs geared towards the Master of Urban Spatial Analytics (MUSA) and Penn IUR's network of urban-focused doctoral students. Activities include, but not limited to, organizing and promoting programs, liaising with students and faculty, publicizing application deadlines, and keeping website information up to date.
• Perform additional duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 2 to 3 years of experience or equivalent combination of education and experience is required.
• 3 to 5 years of progressively responsible experience in operations, administration, or program management, preferably in an academic, research, or nonprofit setting strongly preferred.
• Experience managing budgets
• Experience planning and executing events
• An understanding of urban issues is desirable
• Familiarity with interdisciplinary academic environments is a plus
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience with financial systems such as Penn's financial and HR systems (e.g., BEN Financials, Workday, SEMS) is highly desirable
• Experience supervising and mentoring student workers or junior staff
• Ability to engage with diverse stakeholders including faculty, students, donors, and external partners with professionalism and diplomacy
• Strategic thinker with a data-informed approach to operations, resource allocation, and program development
• Familiarity with digital audience engagement tools

Application Requirement: A Cover Letter and Resume/CV are required to be considered for this position. Please upload your Cover Letter where it asks you to upload your Resume/CV; multiple documents are allowed.

Job Location - City, State: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Department / School: Provost Interdisciplinary Programs

Pay Range: $57,500.00 - $79,310.00 Annual Rate