Department Chair’s Assistant & Team Lead

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Overview Reporting to the Associate Director of Finance & Administration, the Department Chair’s Assistant & Team Lead provides advanced administrative leadership for the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Operating with a high degree of independence, discretion, and professionalism, this role functions as a team lead for the department faculty support team, providing work direction, training, and coordination to 2 administrative staff to ensure consistent, high-quality administrative standards across the department.

Hybrid requirement during the academic year is 4 days on campus and 1 day remote with additional flexibility outside of the AY (end of May-mid August).

Duties include but are not limited to:

• Provides administrative leadership for the departments by developing, implementing, and maintaining office procedures, workflows, and operational standards.
• Coordinates and guides the work of 2 faculty support staff, delegating and monitoring tasks to ensure consistency, accuracy, and adherence to departmental protocols. Tasks include, but are not limited to: organization of departmental events and seminars, expense reports, requisitions, supplier setup and travel coordination.
• Serves as the first point of escalation for operational and workflow issues within the support team.
• Acts as the department’s lead resource on administrative processes related to professional service agreements and other contractual needs; provides guidance, training, and workflow direction to team members as needed.
• Oversees daily operations of the Chair’s Office with minimal need for higher-level administrative intervention.

• Coordinates faculty meetings, prepares agendas, records meeting minutes and tracks action items.
• Serves as a primary resource for department and University policies, providing guidance to faculty, staff, students, and visitors.
• Manages department-wide logistical processes, including key requests, room reservations, directories, and departmental communications.
• Plans and organizes annual prospective graduate student recruiting weekend, seminar speaker visits, and other high visibility departmental events, including overseeing departmental commencement planning.
• Provides comprehensive administrative support including purchasing supplies, arranging travel, organizing events, preparing expense reports and reimbursement requests.
• Provides administrative support to the Department Chair(s) and their lab/students, including purchasing supplies, arranging travel, event support, preparing expense reports and reimbursement requests.
• Provides administrative support for faculty and academic appointment/reappointment processes (ME), coordination of visiting students, and handling of visa related documentation and requests (ME/MS.)
• Responsible for the department’s communication strategy, by managing and overseeing the website, weekly newsletter, digital signage, and internal announcements.

• Supports the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
• Coordinates faculty teaching assignments to ensure all core and mandatory courses are offered.

• May perform additional related duties as required or assigned to support the mission of the department.