Administrative Assistant, McEwen School of Architecture

Laurentian University; Greater Sudbury; On-site; CAD 42,000 - 49,000; Full time

Job summary

Laurentian University is seeking an Administrative Assistant for the McEwen School of Architecture to provide comprehensive administrative support, serve as the primary point of reception, and maintain day-to-day operational continuity for the Director, program coordinators, technologists, and faculty members.

The role involves coordinating budgets, student scholarships, TA processes, course scheduling, accreditation, governance tasks, and ensuring content accuracy on School webpages.

Qualifications

• Two-year college certificate in Office Administration or a related field.
• Five to ten years of related experience in office administration in a post-secondary environment preferred.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills; customer service experience is an asset.
• Proven ability to organize information, materials and resources to complete tasks.
• Strong problem-solving, attention to detail and conflict resolution skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide comprehensive administrative support to the McEwen School of Architecture and act as primary point of reception and information dissemination.
• Monitor budgets, support scholarships and TA processes, and assist with scheduling, accreditation and governance tasks.
• Coordinate projects and meetings, prepare minutes, and arrange travel and accommodations as needed.
• Update and manage School landing pages and CMS/CIR content; liaise with Communications and Digital Strategy as required.

Skills

Verbal & written communication

Interpersonal skills

Organization

Attention to detail

Discretion

Education

Two-year college certificate in Office Administration or related field

Tools

CMS

CIR

Ellucian HR

Job description

Administrative Assistant, McEwen School of Architecture

Position No.: JOBPOST-2026-001385

Salary: $30.72 - $ 35.22 per hour

Competition ends: Tuesday, November 10th at 4:30 pm

Reporting to the Business Manager, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Architecture, the Administrative Assistant provides comprehensive administrative support to the McEwen School of Architecture, serving as the primary point of reception, information dissemination, and day-to-day operational continuity for the Director, program coordinators, technologists, and faculty members.

The Administrative Assistant independently handles recurring administrative deadlines, confidential matters, monitors budgets, supports student scholarship and teaching assistant processes, and assists with course scheduling, accreditation, and governance tasks. Additionally, the incumbent serves as a vital source of procedural and institutional continuity by orienting incoming term Directors to annual operational cycles, critical timelines, and collective agreement compliance obligations to protect the School and the University from procedural errors or operational delays.

Administrative Coordination Support

• Ensures seamless leadership transitions by orienting new Directors, maintaining organizational continuity, and preserving key institutional knowledge year-over-year.
• Receives and distributes information in collaboration with the other administrative assistant, responding to various internal and external requests, and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders
• Liaises information between the McEwen School of Architecture, the Canadian Architecture Certification Board (CACB) Advisory Committee, and other internal and external stakeholders as required.
• Maintains an updated list of cross appointees, adjunct professors, and graduate supervision accreditation, and notifies the Director of upcoming renewals or expirations.
• Provides assistance in the coordination of various projects including curriculum committees and graduate committees.
• Assists with organizing meetings (collection of meeting discussion items, distribution of meeting agendas, recording and preparing minutes for electronic distribution) and making reservations for various projects including School Council, curriculum committees, graduate committees, and outreach events.
• Assists the Director in information management including contact lists for students in each undergraduate and graduate program, graduate program supervisors, and recruitment.
• Ensures content accuracy of the School’s landing pages on the university website, updates content where possible, communicates required updates for all Laurentian-hosted websites pertaining to the School, and ensures required updates to School pages in Content Management System (CMS) and Course Information Repository (CIR).
• Posts announcements and other news items on the School’s social media sites, and coordinates with Communications & Digital Strategy as needed.
• Assists with student recruitment and retention activities including high school outreach in consultation with Liaison.
• Maintains office equipment, paper and electronic filing systems, university email accounts, and personal LUNET pages (maintaining, protecting, and controlling access).
• Monitors transactions, requisitions, purchase orders (P.O.’s), ensuring payment of invoices, tracking and reporting on various budgets, a purchase card (P-Card), petty cash, and external supplier accounts, checking for correctness, accuracy, safekeeping, confidentiality, and security in compliance with institutional policies and regulations, and signalling issues to the Director and the Dean’s office.
• Assists other Schools in the Faculty of Science, Engineering, & Architecture when necessary.
• Assists the Director in the scheduling and updates of course timetables and workloads, and prepares staffing files in Excel to be submitted to the Dean’s office.
• Collects required information from responsible faculty members for student field trips within prescribed deadlines, books necessary travel and accommodation arrangements, and informs the Dean’s office of costs to be collected via student fees.
• Assigns instructors to courses taught each term as part of their regular load in the Faculty Assignment (FASC) form under HR in Ellucian, and assigns technologists to the laboratory sections of those courses.
• Assigns instructors to non-instructional activities that are part of their regular workloads in each term—such as credits for directorship, sabbatical leaves, and program coordination—in the Faculty Assignment Other Activities (FAOA) form under HR in Ellucian.
• Coordinated part-time teaching contracts and extra teaching pay, following union rules to make sure all classes were assigned an instructor.
• Receives various requests with respect to the timetable, signals potential conflicts to the Director and to the Office of the Dean, and prepares course masters to forward to the Dean’s office as required.
• Assists in the collection of data and information in the preparation of Accreditation and Council on Earth Life and Environmental Sciences (CELP) documents and maintains responsibility for document tracking.
• Assists in the collection of data and drafts documents required for unit annual reports, program reviews, and accreditation processes.

Student & Academic Assistant Support

• Prepares and posts advertisements of graduate degree defences in consultation with the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
• Posts and distributes advertisements and assists in the completion of undergraduate and graduate scholarship applications (both internal and external) through consultation with the Director, program coordinators, and graduate coordinators.
• Assists graduate program coordinators in the effective deployment of Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTA).
• Assists in the preparation and updates to annual Teaching Assistant (TA) funding request forms.
• Advises teaching assistants and work-study students with respect to paperwork and payroll.

Other Duties

• Performs other duties within the professional scope and skill level of the position, in full compliance with applicable legislation, university policies, and collective agreements.

Qualifications

• A Two(2)-year college certificate is required in the Office Administration or a related field.
• Five(5) to ten (10) years of related experience in office administration, preferably includes two(2) to three(3) years in a post secondary environment.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills, experience in customer service is an asset.
• Proven ability to identify and organize information, materials and resources required to complete tasks.
• Strong problem-solving, attention to detail, and conflict resolution skills.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills; ability to meet deadlines.
• Excellent strategic, analytical and critical thinking skills.
• Excellent time management and organizational skills with proven ability to manage multiple projects and priorities simultaneously in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience in managing institutional records, adhering to retention policies, and ensuring data integrity.
• Proven ability to work independently with minimal supervision, and collaborate effectively within a team environment.
• Demonstrates the ability to work independently with a high degree of reliability, discretion and initiative.
• Proven discretion and sound judgment when managing highly confidential business, financial, or personnel data.
• Basic knowledge of budgeting and financial administrative tracking within a university framework.
• Knowledge of administrative procedures for recording, preparing, and distributing formal meeting agendas and minutes for governance bodies and committees.
• Experience updating website landing pages and web content using Content Management Systems (CMS) and Course Information Repositories (CIR).
• Ability to work fluently (verbal and written) in both official languages, French and English, is required.

***We are aware that some applicants are experiencing difficulty using our careers portal. Should you complete an application through our online form and receive an error, please submit your application to [e-mail]***

The official University hours of operation shall be from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, during, and including, the months from September to April, and from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m Monday through Friday during and including May to August., amounting to thirty-three and three-quarter (33.75) hours per week.

At Laurentian University, we recognize that work-life balance is essential for both personal well-being and professional success. Our policy offers employees some flexibility to better balance personal needs while maintaining effective service delivery.

Laurentian University is an inclusive and welcoming community committed to employment equity. Applications are encouraged from members of equity-seeking communities including women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions. Laurentian University’s bilingualism policy provides a provision regarding the language requirement for persons self-identifying as First Nations, Métis or Inuit.

Laurentian University is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free experience to applicants with accessibility needs. Requests for accommodation can be made at any stage during the recruitment process. Please contact Human Resources for more information ([e-mail]).