The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is one of the world’s leading research institutions, and they are seeking a Phd/Doctoral Program Coordinator for their Department of Economics. This role provides administrative support for the Economics PhD program, overseeing the lifecycle of doctoral students from admissions to graduation and facilitating various programmatic activities and events.
Responsibilities
- Primary point of contact for current and potential doctoral students regarding department and campus policies and procedures. Manage departmental doctoral program policies
- Coordinates and attends graduate program events. Includes student orientations, student appreciation weeks and various special gatherings throughout the year to promote engagement and foster connections
- Develop and implement communication and onboarding activities for admitted doctoral students to facilitate the matriculation process (including new student orientation)
- Perform degree audits and student progress assessments each semester to ensure students are on track for graduation
- Communicate all announcements and deadlines relevant to doctoral students
- Implement and contribute to process improvements to increase efficiencies
- Provide Awards Committee with timeline and data for doctoral awards decision-making process for twice annual Conference Travel Grants and annual departmental and named awards
- Facilitate summer research fellowship process
- Process fellowships and awards for the doctoral program students
- Facilitate petitions and other graduate college forms for doctoral students
- Coordinate qualifying exams twice yearly. This includes preparing provided exams, assigning anonymous identifiers for blind grading, arranging the date, time, room, and proctors, and reporting results to students after faculty grade
- Create and maintain exam proctoring sign-up and monitor student proctoring responsibility fulfillment each semester
- Maintain current doctoral student records and databases
- Process course registration information and review override requests, granting them when appropriate
- Generate miscellaneous letters for doctoral students
- Create, implement, and improve enrichment activities that promote doctoral student success, professional growth, and program cohesion. Examples may include new student onboarding program, inviting expert speakers in career launching/development, networking/how-to network events, elevator speech coaching, headshot day, and/or the development of a doctoral student ambassador program
- Ensure students complete the Oral English Assessment Interview, Graduate Academy for College Teaching, Grading Symposium, and departmental TA Orientation when required. (Responsible for registering students for the Grad Academy for College Teaching.)
- Survey doctoral students each semester for student employment availability/interest to fulfill RA, TA, and TA-Grader roles. Provide unit HR with student employment assignments for appointment processing and work with business office on RA funding balances. After assigning TA's to discussion sections and Graders to courses, provide assignment summaries to TAs and notify instructors of their TA's/Graders
- Manage the Course Inventory Management (CIM) and CIM-Programs (CIM-P) for the doctoral program
- Collect and summarize data requested by the Head, Director, or other staff or programs to complete surveys and other documents
- Other duties as assigned to further the mission of the unit
- Serve as Doctoral Admissions Administrator, responsible for overall admissions process for Econ doctoral program
- Serve as staff liaison to Doctoral Admissions Committee including maintaining access permissions to the appropriate systems (currently Slate and Grad Apps)
- Advise Doctoral Admissions Committee Chair of admissions policies, deadlines, and financial guidelines
- Communicate with applicants and admitted students regarding admission decisions and accurate and timely responses to inquiries. Responsible for sending offers of admission via admissions system
- Maintain applicant records in the admissions programs
- Coordinate Admitted Student Visit Day with the unit's events coordinator
- Maintain and enhance the procedure for handling confidential letters of recommendation written by faculty for outgoing PhD students on the Econ Job Market each fall
- In collaboration with departmental website maintenance staff, organize and host at least one late-spring and one early-fall Letter of Recommendation Process/Job Market Website Information Session for outgoing PhD students on the Econ Job Market; communicate the process and anticipated deadlines with letter writers
- Ensure students approaching graduation are aware of deadlines, are meeting the criteria to graduate, and added themselves to the graduation list
- Coordinate Preliminary and Final Defense procedures for each doctoral student
- Responsible for doctoral dissertation/thesis format review and verification of graduate certification
- Coordinate graduation for the doctoral students in collaboration with the undergrad and master's staff and attend graduation. Communicate hooding procedures for smooth on-stage events
- Participate in college events for graduate contacts
Skills
- Bachelor's degree
- A total of one (1) year (12 months) in education, training and/or work experience in graduate programming, student advising, program administration, or related areas
- Note: Master's Degree in an area consistent with the duties of the position may be substituted for one (1) year of work experience
- Experience in higher education
- Experience in student services
- Knowledge of or ability to obtain UIUC policies and procedures as they relate to graduate programs
- General familiarity of graduate education programs, requirements and expectations
- Ability to interpret and administer policies
- Proven track record of customer service with preferred emphasis on interactions with faculty and graduate students
- Ability to prepare reports and proposals with minimal oversight
- Results-oriented with strong organizational and time management skills
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, particularly those that enable the candidate to effectively communicate clearly with a wide range of constituencies including students, parents, faculty, and staff
- Commitment to creating an inclusive environment
- Demonstrated ability to work independently, as well as collaboratively, with a wide range of constituencies
- Ability to provide a welcoming headquarters for students in the Econ PhD Program
- Ability to learn new computer systems
Benefits
- Health
- Dental
- Vision
- Life Insurance
- A Retirement Plan
- Paid time Off
- Tuition waivers for employees and dependents
Company Overview
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is dedicated to building upon its tradition of excellence in education, research, public engagement and economic development. It was founded in 1915, and is headquartered in Champaign, IL, US, with a workforce of 10001+ employees. Its website is http://illinois.edu.