Senior Advisor

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: $69,000 - $74,960

Position Summary

Supervised by the Associate/Assistant Director of Advising, the Senior Advisor serves as the main point of contact and overall resource for students in the School of Professional Studies (SPS) programs, providing academic advising, coaching, relevant programming, and support from the point of admission through program completion. These offerings currently include cross-disciplinary Master's Degree Programs, Pre-Graduate and Graduate Certificate Programs, Structured and Unstructured Certifications of Professional Achievement, take-a-class options for bachelor's degree holders and visiting students enrolled at other institutions, High School Programs, and the American Language Programs. The Senior Advisor will provide a seamless experience for students, transformational programming and advising, and proactive outreach to support student success. In addition, the Senior Advisor oversees the annual advising team review and update process, the onboarding of new team members, and maintains expertise in an advising competency area, providing team leadership and training in this area.

Responsibilities

• Strategize, plan and execute new student yield activities and events, including but not limited to personalized outreach, other communications, webinars and other events
• Track the progress of each newly enrolling student relative to required actions leading up to the start of classes, and proactively communicate to drive the appropriate action, reduce potential barriers to enrollment, and student preparedness.
• Ensure a seamless transition from applicant to student
• Conduct new student strong start coaching to help newly enrolling students understand the School's academic and community standards, plan for the transition into the role of Columbia University student and all of the expectations that accompany the new role
• Counsel new students on the available curricular options within their program and guide students as they develop their academic enrollment plan
• Attend and present at new student orientation
• Assist in the continuous improvement of new student strong start coaching communications, activities, advising and events across the advising team
• Serve as the first point of contact for students in all stages for all inquiries
• Advise students in all stages of course requirements, enrollment timelines, academic responsibilities, and overall expectations, including those related to the academic calendar
• Monitor student registration to ensure students are enrolled in the appropriate classes and proactively reach out to students who need to adjustment their schedules
• Advise students of available resources and recommend resources as appropriate. Serve as a bridge between students and University partners and resources
• Counsel students having academic problems and make support referrals as appropriate
• Assist with cross-registration for students seeking registrations outside the School and for students from other schools seeking registration into program courses
• Proactively reach out to students at key intervention points and conduct mandatory advising sessions following team, School, and University guidelines
• Conduct individual and group advising with an emphasis on transformational engagement with students and promoting student success
• Respond to student inquiries via phone, email and walk-in
• Track all student interactions in the CRM to ensure student activity reporting is accurate and reflective of actual student engagement volume. Provide weekly reports on activity and student trends
• Proactively alert supervisor and other relevant stakeholders to student concerns likely to escalate to avoid escalation and to escalated student issues. Proactively problem solve solutions to student issues to avoid escalation
• Create programming and engagement opportunities for students at the program level and encourage student engagement in program, School as well as University events
• Provide support services for students across different program delivery modalities including traditional on-campus courses, online courses and a hybrid on-campus/online for full-time and part-time students
• Attend, and present at relevant program-specific meetings and events
• Maintain very high level of knowledge of program curricular details and stay abreast of changes to curriculum and faculty within the assigned program
• Assist with promoting and marketing SPS programs: participate in relevant recruitment events; assist in presenting at informational sessions as appropriate
• Serve as a back-up advisor as needed for other SPS programs including responding to inquiries, attending events, and advising students in other programs
• Troubleshoot and communicate registration holds with students, making recommendations for resolutions as appropriate
• Reinforce messages sent from other University and School stakeholders to drive the appropriate student action or response
• Assist with the creation and execution of early stage student performance intervention tracking and advising
• Play a lead role in the annual advising team review and update process including collecting and synthesizing feedback from across the advisors and making personal recommendations for improvement, scheduling and logistics for planning meetings, communications to relevant stakeholders about the planning meetings and meeting follow-up, taking the meeting notes and synthesizing feedback provided during the meeting, assisting with the creation of the update action plan, and monitoring the completion of tasks against deadlines
• Create and maintain team process flow diagrams and ensure workflow documentation remains current as modifications are made.
• Assist in the onboarding on new team members, including the creation of new employee training schedules, arranging meetings with relevant stakeholders in advance and making introductions, monitoring the completion of training activities, and making recommendations for additional training as needed
• Specialize in an advising competency area, develop and maintain training and execution documentation for the area of specialization, and lead recurrent team trainings in this area. Maintain current knowledge of trends in this area and serve as a lead in identifying additional areas of specialization
• Assist with school wide events such as graduation and other student-facing events
• Performs other duties and projects as assigned or requested

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and/or equivalent related experience required
• 2 years related work experience required
• A resume and cover letter with salary requirements must be submitted for applicant to be considered for this position

Other Requirements

• Excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills
• Strong presentation skills
• Intellectual curiosity, sound problem-solving and decision-making abilities, and strength in creative and innovative thinking.
• Highly professional and collegial demeanor, and willingness to be a collaborative team member
• Ability to inspire and motivate others
• Proficiency with Windows, Microsoft Word and Excel required
• Some evening and weekend work required
• Familiarity with or willingness to learn SIS, TargetX, and other systems, applications and software used by the University and the School
• Exceptional attention to detail, strong organization and time management skills, and the ability to perform non-routine work with changing priorities
• Ability to handle confidential information in a mature, professional manner
• Must be able to work with a diverse student body, faculty and administrators
• Ability to work independently as well as in teams in a highly-matrixed environment, receiving direction from and providing support to multiple sources
• Prior experience in higher education administration, advising, or teaching
• Must have worked a minimum of one year in the Advisor role and exceeded expectations
• Strong working knowledge of all SPS programs and evidence of commitment to support School-wide and divisional goals
• Proven commitment to excellence and has evidenced a high quality work output
• Must have strong recommendations from Academic Directors and administrative leaders

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.