Executive Assistant – Academic Dean

Jobtailor; Elsah (IL); On-site; USD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Principia College seeks a seasoned administrative leader to run day-to-day operations for the Office of the Dean of Academics. You will serve as the primary contact, manage budgets and staff, and coordinate with HR on hiring and onboarding of faculty.

You’ll maintain calendars, prepare communications and decks, and support executive leaders. The role involves strategic project work, event planning, and ensuring policy compliance across the academic unit.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or 3-5 years of related administrative experience.
• 6+ years of administrative experience with progressively responsible roles.
• Confidentiality and discretion in handling sensitive information.
• Ability to manage priorities in a fast-paced environment with good judgment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Serves as the initial contact for the Office of the Dean of Academics.
• Liaison between office, Center Directors, and HR for hiring/onboarding.
• Manages budgets for the dean’s office; reviews budgets monthly.
• Oversees temporary staff including student/adult hourly workers.
• Tracks deadlines and maintains faculty due dates calendar.
• Maintains internal policies, website, and Banner data.
• Provides executive support: calendars, travel, correspondences, decks.
• Attends meetings, takes minutes, and prepares documents.
• Supports College President’s EA and develops training for EAs.
• Plans and executes special projects and events, including convocations.
• Coordinates syllabi, course evaluations, and awards ceremonies.

Skills

Communication

Organization

Problem-solving

Discretion

Independence

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Microsoft Office

Outlook

Scheduling software

Job description

Responsibilities

• Oversees and manages all aspects of the day‑to‑day operations of the Office of the Dean of Academics, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in all processes, including:
  • Serves as the initial point of contact for the Office of the Dean of Academics to both internal and external constituencies
  • Act as the primary liaison between the office, Center Directors, and HR for hiring and onboarding new and visiting faculty, managing secondary contracts and stipends, and supporting the completion of the faculty annual evaluation process
  • Manages budgets for the dean's office, serving as a proxy on all budgets within the Academic Unit; reviews all budgets monthly for the Dean of Academics; and coordinates budget requests that require a purchase requisition when appropriate
  • Manages temporary staff who support the office, including student employees and adult hourly employees
  • Tracks due dates and deadlines for dean’s office action items; creating/maintaining faculty due dates calendar
  • Ensures internal office policies and procedures are current, monitors and maintains the Dean of Academics' internal website so that it is current
  • Tracks all hiring paperwork and processes for the academic unit
  • Responsible for maintaining accurate faculty lists, files, internal data, and Banner information
  • Provides executive support to Dean of Academics, including:
    • Manages Dean of Academics’ calendars and travel arrangements
    • Prepares correspondence and campus-wide announcements from the dean, reviews the dean’s correspondence, and makes edits and recommendations
    • Prepares slide decks and presentations on behalf of the Dean of Academics, for internal and external audiences
    • Attends meetings and takes minutes; ensures that deans have necessary documents for meetings
    • Coordinates regularly with the EAs for the College President and Chief Executive, and may support the Office of the College President when their EA is unavailable or on leave, as appropriate
    • May mentor or support the development of Executive Assistants within the institution, as appropriate
  • Provides strategic support to Dean of Academics including:
    • Serves as strategic thought partner for Dean of Academics, proactively identifying challenges and developing solutions to enhance the effectiveness of the Academic Unit
    • Develops and implements processes and procedures for the Academic Unit on behalf of the Dean of Academics, improving Academic Unit effectiveness and efficiency
    • Manages the visiting faculty hiring process, including collection of department applications, analysis of course requests across the academic unit, makes recommendation to the Dean of Academics, makes offer to candidates, and coordinates onboarding process with relevant offices
    • Supports the Dean of Academics in collaboration with Center Directors in analyzing course needs for the Academic Unit, such as supporting course cancellation process, FTE proposals, and special projects
    • Serves as central point of communication between Dean of Academics and members of the Academic Unit
    • Prepares agendas for meetings; tracks action items developed in meetings and ensures their timely completion
  • Manages and executes special projects, ongoing projects, and events, including:
    • Plans, coordinates, and implements special events hosted by the Dean of Academics' office
    • Collaborates with the President's office on the planning and execution of Fall Convocation and Commencement ceremonies and rehearsals
    • Coordinates special projects (Annenberg scholars, visiting consultants, program reviewers, etc.)
    • Manages the College’s annual academic calendar approval review/process
    • Manages logistics and development of the faculty/academic staff workshops, including any related meeting space reservations, catering, and supporting materials, developing agendas, coordinating with invited presenters
    • Oversees the setup and collection of all syllabi each term through the online syllabi software program
    • Creates and manages the administration of the online course evaluation software each term
    • Oversees and executes annual College Awards Ceremony, which requires up to 20 hours/week during Spring semester and beginning of Summer: Coordinates collection of all student and faculty awards
    • Manages all awards budgets and collaborates with Advancement staff on any funds and awards that require stewardship
    • Executes all aspects of awards ceremony, including scheduling, invitation to awardees and awards donors, developing the ceremony script, ordering awards, etc.

Requirements

• Student of Christian Science
• Supportive of Principia’s guiding statements as articulated here https://www.principia.edu/about/guiding-statements
• Bachelor’s degree, or 3-5 years of related administrative experience
• 6+ years of administrative experience with track record of progressively responsible roles in administrative positions
• Comfortable with managing unanticipated urgent demands with confidentiality and discretion.
• Demonstrated capacity to manage priorities in a fast-paced environment, working independently, using good judgment and creative problem-solving to anticipate and handle issues that arise and may need the dean’s attention.
• Demonstrated strong relationship-building skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated organizational and general computer skills, including proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, internet, Outlook email, scheduling, and others; demonstrated ability to learn and work with new software programs.

Hard Skills

• Budget Management
• Faculty Hiring Processes
• Event Coordination
• Project Management
• Data Management

Soft Skills

• Problem-Solving
• Discretion
• Independence
• Creativity
• Confidentiality