Associate Director of Institutional Research

Overview

Lawrence University is looking for a creative, curious, and technically savvy associate director who loves data to join the Institutional Research (IR) office. We seek someone who enjoys collecting, cleaning, and analyzing data, producing reports, presentations, and visualizations, and improving processes. The ideal candidate has three to five years of quantitative experience, ideally in a higher education setting.

The Associate Director of Institutional Research provides support to the Director of Institutional Research. You will develop, coordinate, manage, and maintain institutional research projects, data collection, surveys, and reports, including some that may be grant-funded, aimed at supporting the University’s mission and strategic priorities and used for planning, decision support, and reporting. This is a regular, full-time, 12-month, (1.0 FTE) benefits-eligible position that reports to the Director of Institutional Research.

The IR office is located in Wilson House. The anticipated start date is spring 2026.

Under the general supervision of the Director of Institutional Research, the duties and responsibilities include, but may not be limited to, the following categories.

• Responsible for the IR office’s portfolio of recurring external reporting to federal agencies (IPEDS), accrediting bodies (HLC), college rankings (US News & World Report), financial/bond agencies (Moody’s), initiatives (Common Data Set and American Talent Initiative), consortia groups (HEDS), member organizations (ACM, WAICU, CIC), foundations, and evaluators; serves as the liaison between these organizations and the University for reporting and disseminating data in an accurate and timely manner.
• Responsible for the IR office’s portfolio of recurring internal requests and reporting to campus stakeholders (e.g., senior leadership, academic departments, campus committees). Analyze data from University systems (Banner, Argos, Slate, EAB Navigate, Handshake) and publicly available sources to produce insights, decision support, and required reports for campus stakeholders. Lead the University Fact Book production. Lead and/or assist with peer institution analysis and benchmarking activities through querying national databases.
  
  Work with large and complex data sets, including extracting, merging, cleaning, analyzing, and transforming data to meet reporting needs and maintain historical records. Assist the director in collecting, analyzing data (SPSS), interpreting data, and reporting quantitative and qualitative findings in written (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Power BI, SharePoint, Canva, IR website) and oral formats tailored to the audience. Respond to ad hoc data inquiries that align with IR and University mission and strategic priorities.
  
  Conduct and/or support data collection, analysis, and reporting for accreditation, key performance indicators, strategic planning, financial value transparency/gainful employment, grant and foundation funding, etc.

• Serve as the technology specialist for the office, including leading efforts to develop data models and automate IR reports (Argos, Power BI) using syntax (SQL, DAX) to streamline processes and support reporting and projects, creating user-friendly data visualizations that appeal to varying levels of data literacy, managing the public-facing IR website (Drupal), managing internal-facing IR SharePoint site, and collaborating/consulting with Technology Services as needed to write and refine data models and reports.
  
  Take lead on researching use of AI in IR tasks and propose possibilities to incorporate into workflows.

• Responsible for designing and administering web-based surveys (Qualtrics), analyzing data (SPSS), preparing user-friendly data visualizations for use in presentations (PowerPoint), reports (MS Excel and Word), infographics (Canva), and interactive dashboards (Power BI); and summarizing data findings for use by decision-makers in written reports and/or presentations. Additionally, serve as the coordinator and liaison for the…