Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Research

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary:
  Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard
  
  Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: $85,000 - $90,000 Annually

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.

Position Summary

The Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Research is a newly created role within Columbia's Undergraduate Research and Fellowships office (URF), established to support the unit's growth and its mission to support research and build capacity to meaningfully support research across disciplines. Working in close collaboration with the Associate Dean, the Assistant Dean will take on substantial programmatic and administrative responsibility, with a particular focus on URF's research programming.

Beyond program delivery, this role calls for a genuine commitment to student success: the Assistant Dean will guide undergraduates navigating research for the first time, develop intentional outreach strategies to reach students who might not otherwise access these opportunities, and foster a culture in which inquiry, and the critical thinking and creative scholarship that research engagement requires are seen as core parts of the Columbia undergraduate experience.

• Oversee and manage applications for research opportunities and essay prizes.
• Administer research programs, which includes developing and running programs, cultivating faculty participation, facilitating mentor-mentee relationships, advising students, and managing the application process.
• Play an active role in identifying and developing new research opportunities for students during the academic year.
• Handle logistical coordination for undergraduate research engagements, including orientation programming, tracking of participant data, and other steps required prior to the launch of the research programs.
• Build and run workshop programming for summer undergraduate researchers, as well as ongoing sessions throughout the year for students at various stages of their research journey.
• Build on partnerships within and beyond Columbia that will allow URF to expand the variety of research experiences available. Collaborations might include working with Columbia?s Global Centers, working with the Core, developing and deepening relationships with our graduate schools.
• Support advising and day-to-day management of URF programming and funding opportunities.

• Support students in Scholar/cohort-based programs, including students who write for the undergraduate research blog;
• Work with students who are interested in writing about their undergraduate research experiences, either for URF or via other undergraduate research journals available to them;
• Contribute to annual events such as the Academic Resources Fair, the Undergraduate Research Symposium, etc.
• Maintain and grow URF's social media presence, with attention to clear, compelling communication about programs, deadlines, opportunities, and student achievements.
• Build relationships across campus ? with student organizations, faculty, and departments ? to ensure that awareness of research opportunities reaches students well before they think to look for them.
• Work in partnership with University Communications and academic units to tell the story of what Columbia undergraduates are doing in labs, archives, studios, and fields around the world.

• Meet individually with students who are exploring or actively pursuing research ? helping them identify the right opportunities, understand what's expected of them, and put their best work forward in applications and presentations.
• Create and lead programming specifically for first- and second-year students who are earlier in the process of figuring out what research can look like for them.
• Build sustained, evidence-based approaches to recruiting and retaining students from underrepresented groups into research across all four of Columbia's undergraduate divisions.
• Develop programming to support students exploring postgraduate research opportunities, in particular with regard to postgraduate study, including developing relationships with Columbia graduate schools.

• Work alongside URF colleagues to support grant application processes in the fall, spring, and summer cycles.
• Help build and refine the operational infrastructure of the office ? from database management and record-keeping to improving how programs are tracked and reported over time.
• Take part in the office's ongoing assessment work and data analysis, tracking, gathering and synthesizing evidence of program impact and the student/department experience to inform both internal strategy…