Editorial Assistant

Boston College Introduction

Founded in 1863, Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic university located six miles from downtown Boston with an enrollment of 9,654 full-time undergraduates and 5,072 graduate and professional students. Ranked 37 among national universities, Boston College has 923 full-time and 1,336 FTE faculty, 2,822 non-faculty employees, an operating budget of $1.4 billion, and an endowment in excess of $3.9 billion.

Job Description

The Editorial Assistant provides support both to the Monan Professor and to the Department of Faculty Services at Boston College Law School. Support for the Monan Professor consists primarily of providing editorial and research services - described in more detail below - pertaining to books and other scholarly materials, responding quickly and appropriately to inquiries from faculty members, students, academic institutions, publishers, and others (such as university and government officials and judges), arranging conferences, facilitating research, and coordinating research assistants and committee meetings.

The Editorial Assistant also augments the law school Faculty Services team, assisting with editing projects of faculty publications - both articles and book projects - and ad hoc requests for proofreading of assignments, exams, and other materials to be distributed to students. The core of the role is the provision of editorial support to written work such as a book or an article that will be published in a law review or similar academic journal. In addition, the position serves in other administrative roles that make use of the position's considerable editorial expertise; for example, the Editorial Assistant is a member of a panel of graders for the annual law school journal application/competition, in which capacity the Editorial Assistant reads student-written work and provides an assessment of writing efficacy, clarity, and composition.

In providing editorial and research support to both the Monan Professor and to the law school faculty as a whole, the Editorial Assistant prepares working copies for publication in scholarly works, professional journals, and department, school, and/or University-published materials. Substantive editing duties include making stylistic, structural, and/or grammatical corrections; conferring with authors on content, form, and style; suggesting or performing revisions; and compiling indices and tables of contents. Technical editing duties include conducting source collection of cited authorities; evaluating citations according to either Bluebook of Chicago Manual of Style rules; and making or suggesting corrections to citations accordingly.

Essential functions include but are not limited to the following:

Administrative Support to the Monan Chair (20%)

• Schedules various meetings on behalf of the professor, such as committee meetings, student meetings and other various business meetings.
• Record minutes for various faculty and committee meetings
• Provide general market research as requested for various faculty committees
• Assist with other various administrative tasks as required
• Assist in drafting and editing manuscripts, articles and presentations.
• Assist in editing law school assignments and exams as requested

Research Support to the Monan Chair (20%)

• Provides research support services to the Monan Professor for various books, articles and research work.
• Conduct relevant secondary research
• Collaborate on research design, conducting data analysis, interpreting results

Editorial Support to the Monan Chair and Law School Faculty (55%)

• Provides editorial support services to the Monan Professor on various books, articles and research work.
• Provide editorial services to Law School faculty as assigned by the Associate Dean of Faculty and the Director of Faculty Services. This could include support on books, articles or other literary forms
• Assist Faculty Services Director in training and supervising student RAs in editing duties
• Editorial services include but are not limited to content, structure and style editing, proof-reading, chapter reads,
• Design editorial calendars and timelines to plan and coordinate services provided
• Track editorial services provided across the faculty and present data to senior management
• In unique situations, help identify 3rd party editorial services when specific needs can't be met or we are at capacity
• Ensure all written content reflects the writer's voice and editorial standards

Other Administrative Support at the Law School (5%)

• Assist the Law School in running various events such as commencement and orientation
• Assist the Student & Academic Services Office in proctoring exams
• Assist in grading of annual law school journal application materials
• Assist faculty services during peak seasons
• Proofread various documents as assigned
• Other ad hoc projects related to the role
• From time to time help monitor student employees