Office Administrator (2666)

Northern Illinois University; DeKalb (IL); On-site; USD 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

Northern Illinois University is seeking a dedicated Office Administrator to support the Chair of the Public Administration department. The role involves graduate and undergraduate program support, budget tracking, and research for department operations.

It requires in-person presence and occasional offsite work with a flexible schedule. The position supports faculty, staff, and students, coordinating hiring, payroll, schedules, and event logistics.

Qualifications

• High school diploma or equivalent is required.
• Knowledge of personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits is required.
• Knowledge of budgeting, accounting, and budget control is expected.
• Ability to communicate clearly, both verbally and in writing.
• Experience with administrative tasks and office management is important.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate faculty and staff searches, including ads, applicants, interviews and paperwork.
• Process payroll and benefits forms for faculty.
• Maintain course schedules and grade rosters.
• Prepare reports for regulatory, accreditation and department needs.
• Manage department financial accounts and budget.
• Provide front-office support and coordination for events.

Skills

Knowledge of recruitment and search

Budgeting and accounting basics

Effective written and verbal communica

Office administration excellence

People management assistance

Education

High school diploma or equivalent

Tools

MyNIU system

PeopleAdmin

Job description

Find your Career at Northern Illinois University!

Link to Department Website or Custom Search Page

Position Summary, Requirements, and Qualifications

Position Summary, Requirements, and Qualifications

Overview

With schools, departments and centers spanning the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the largest of NIU’s six undergraduate colleges. By the nature of our mission, we touch virtually every new student to the university, regardless of their major, through the wide array of general education courses housed within our departments.

The mission of the Department of Public Administration is to improve the quality of life for all in local communities by strengthening professional and ethical public and nonprofit management through teaching, scholarship and community engagement. We offer graduate courses in public administration to enhance the knowledge, skills and leadership capacity of individuals pursuing public service careers.

Position Summary

The primary role of this position is to serve as staff assistant to the Chair of the department, provide centralized administrative support for department operations and academic programs, support faculty and staff, serve as secretary to the faculty, and provide primary in-person administrative support for the department office. The Office Administrator supports the department’s graduate and undergraduate offerings, including its in-person and online Master of Public Administration programs, graduate certificates, B.S. in Public Service Leadership, and other academic offerings. The Office Administrator sets daily, weekly, monthly, and annual work goals and workflows in consultation with the Chair and office staff and provides administrative support under the direction of the Chair. The position requires regular in-person work as well as occasional offsite work with a modified schedule to support department programs and events on and beyond the DeKalb campus.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Works closely with Chair and search committee to coordinate all faculty and staff searches, including placement of advertisements, correspondence with applicants, scheduling and arranging interviews with faculty, alumni, students, and appropriate university units, preparing affirmative action reports, acquiring and filing appropriate paperwork for payroll, providing information for new hires.
• Coordinates with the Chair and Assistant to the Chair.
• Develops and tracks annual graduate assistant obligation reports for the college.
• Maintains financial position report used to designate position numbers for hiring graduate assistants.
• Conducts hiring process of all graduate assistants with contracts and Instructors (PeopleAdmin, Contracts, HR paperwork).
• Implements the approved Instructional Staffing Plan with the financial position report to designate position numbers for hiring instructors.
• Tracks and secures permission to teach graduate courses from CLA &S and Graduate School for all instructors.
• Coordinates with the Assistant to the Chair to generate customer invoice requests using customer contracts.
• Maintains and tracks corresponding financial reports to ensure the externship cost center is balanced. Works with Assistant to the Chair to resolve any discrepancies.
• Processes payroll and benefits forms for regular and temporary faculty, including all employee time cards, and faculty benefit statements.

Department Operations

• Coordinates with the Chair and Assistant to the Chair, enters course schedules each semester into the MyNIU system.
• Maintains course schedules, collects and files grade rosters, and directs the course evaluation process for all courses offered. Coordinates as needed with SPGA , POLS , NNGO , and other university offices.
• Insures faculty, staff, and graduate assistants comply with annual ethics training and other requirements under applicable state and university regulations (e.g., Title IX / Implicit Bias).
• Responsible for creating reports generated by Department database for regulatory, accreditation, and other purposes as requested by Chair.
• Records minutes of faculty meetings and retreats, provides draft to faculty after initial review by Chair, generates task list off the minutes to distribute to faculty for follow-up. Maintains records of meeting minutes.
• Provides logistical support for faculty meetings, including room reservations, processing rental fees, and other requirements. Provides hospitality support for faculty meetings, including arranging beverage provisions as requested.
• Requires occasional offsite work with a modified schedule to support student, faculty, and alumni events.

Fiscal Administration

• Manages all Department financial accounts. Tasks include recordkeeping, monitoring budget, compliance in all categories, arranging inter-fund and intra-account transfers, purchasing, and all forms processes.
• Assists Chair in developing the budget for all accounts; formulates recommendations regarding budgetary requests and proposals; administers budgetary lines for clerical support, contractual services, commodities, printing, and telecommunications; and provides budgetary review and control of all Department budgets.
• Processes accounting forms, including automotive requests, travel vouchers, purchase requisitions, central stores requests, printing requisitions, invoices, check requests.
• Monitors outgoing mail, printing, fax and telephone expenses.
• Provides the Chair, faculty, and Department staff with logistical support for student recruitment, student events (such as orientation and graduation), and comprehensive exams.
• Uses MyScholarships (or successor program) to designate financial awards to select students.
• Serves as secretary of NIU’s Pi Alpha Alpha chapter, including processing applications, dues payments, and certificates.
• Acts as primary agent for purchasing office and hospitality supplies for the Department through authorized university vendors (Office Depot, Amazon, University Bookstore). Primary PCard holder for any faculty or student transactions that require electronic transactions, including event registrations.
• Monitors and maintains adequate office supply levels.

Support for Faculty / Instructors

• Assists Chair in developing and implementing the Department’s annual travel budget for faculty and staff.
• Processes paperwork for travel reimbursements.
• Tracks expenditures relative to budget across all funding sources.
• Provides Chair with monthly status reports on travel budget.
• Coordinates with faculty and CLA &S business manager to process and track expenses for faculty that are supported by contracted startup funds from CLA &S.
• Coordinates annual faculty evaluation process.
• Prepares annual merit review documents for appropriate faculty meetings, monitors faculty compliance with process deadlines; files merit review letters from Chair in faculty HR files
• Prepares reports for evaluation meeting and distributes to faculty (including grade report, evaluation report, vita, and faculty service reports).
• Communicates and manages all forms and records for faculty regarding personnel processes for tenure-track faculty (evaluation, faculty service reports, faculty CVs, recommendation for promotion and tenure).
• Assists faculty members in preparation of P&T portfolios for appropriate faculty meeting and university committees, monitors faculty compliance with process deadlines; files P&T documents.
• Provides coordination and document support of personnel and faculty governance policies and procedures, including graduate faculty status and sabbatical leave.
• Acts as primary contact for the University Bookstore to ensure book orders are placed by faculty each semester. Coordinates with instructors to place book orders on their behalf.
• Provides occasional support for emeritus faculty, e.g., forwarding mail and phone messages from reporters and alumni.
• Other duties as assigned.

Office Management

• Provides logistical and financial administrative support for Department events (inter alia, dinners, golf outings, receptions, special speakers, NASPAA , ASPA , ICMA , ILCMA conferences, programs). Duties include (inter alia) arranging location, date, invitations, organizing volunteers, being on site at event (registration desk, arranging technical equipment), contract management, and sending thank you notes.
• Advises Chair on clerical and student worker staffing needs; assists Chair in clerical hiring and evaluation.
• Collaborates with Chair and office staff to design and maintain Department files and recordkeeping systems. Responsible for creating reports generated by this information for regulatory, accreditation, and other purposes as requested by Chair.
• Manages the Banovetz Reading Room collection.
• Maintains the monthly telephone/fax/copying records.
• Maintains the office supply and equipment inventory.
• Manages faculty/department meeting calendar, space and equipment requests; manages meeting hospitality. Processes Department work in accordance with university deadlines and works with faculty to assure their compliance with those deadlines.
• Records notes for staff meetings; tracks progress of Chair and office staff on project due dates.
• Serves as primary backup for front office: answers incoming Department phone calls and greets visitors to the Department in absence of the Office Support Specialist. Refers calls to appropriate office staff or faculty, answers visitor’s questions and refers to appropriate office staff or faculty. Makes appointments with appropriate person for follow-up as necessary.
• Oversees the maintenance of the Department’s office space, including identifying maintenance needs and scheduling needed maintenance work.
• Acts as primary reporting contact for inventory and key control.

Staff Assistant to the Chair

• Tracks the Chair’s calendar, reminds the Chair of appointments, commitments, and deadlines.
• Assists the Chair with development of information needed in the performance of his/her duties.
• Reviews the Chair’s outgoing correspondence. Prepares from written drafts and/or composes original reports, frequently of a confidential nature, for the Chair using independent judgment. Because of the often sensitive nature of this material, it cannot be delegated to others.
• Creates original communications, including email correspondence to be sent by the Chair, or may create communications under the Chair’s identity, including thank you letters to donors at least monthly. Reviews and copy edits documents sent out by the Department office.
• Answers telephone calls to the Chair when Chair is unavailable, answering callers’ questions, providing needed information when possible. Makes calls on behalf of the Chair to assist with professional contacts.
• Supports the Chair in other tasks as may be assigned to support the operations of the Department.

Minimum Required Qualifications (Civil Service)

• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Any one of the following from the categories below:

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) (Civil Service)

• Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, leadership technique, and coordination of people and resources.
• Knowledge of administrative and administrative procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Knowledge of computers and computer systems (including hardware and software) to enter data, or process information.
• Skill in material resources management through obtaining and seeing to the appropriate use of equipment, facilities, and materials needed to do certain work.
• Skill in communicating effectively, both verbally and in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
• Skill in decision making by considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions and choosing the most appropriate one.
• Ability to understand written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
• Ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
• Ability to provide guidance and direction to subordinates, including setting performance standards and monitoring performance.

Specialty Factors (Civil Service)

None

Preferred Qualifications (Civil Service)

• Experience with MyNIU student system, accounts receivable and financial systems.

Minimum Required Qualifications (SPS)

N/A

Additional Requirements (SPS)

N/A

Preferred Qualifications (SPS)

N/A

• Occasional offsite work may be needed with a modified schedule to support department programs and events.
• Requires occasional offsite work with a modified schedule to support department events.

Appointment and Compensation Details

Appointment and Compensation Details

Anticipated Appointment Start Date

Anticipated Appointment Start Date 11/16/26

Anticipated Appointment End Date

Percent of Staff Year

Percent of Staff Year 1.00

Standard Hours Per Week 37.50

Working Hours

Working Hours 8am - 4:30pm, Monday-Friday, one-hour lunch

• Employment is contingent upon your passing a criminal background investigation. You may not begin work until the criminal background investigation results have been received and cleared by Human Resources.

In accordance with applicable statutes and regulations, NIU is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, religion, age, disability (physical and mental), marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender (identity and expression), political affiliation, or any other factor unrelated to professional qualifications, and will comply with all applicable federal and state statutes, regulations and orders pertaining to nondiscrimination, equal opportunity and affirmative action.

The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies:

Director of Civil Rights Office, Title IX Coordinator
Health Services 2nd floor
[e-mail]
815-753-0455

In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification document form upon hire.

ADA Accommodation

NIU remains committed to ensuring that its recruitment and application procedures include full opportunities for applicants with disabilities. Employment opportunities will not be denied to anyone because of the need to make accommodations for a person’s disability during either the application or interview process. An applicant who believes they require an accommodation to participate in the employment process due to a disability may request that accommodation through the Accommodation Request Form . For further assistance, please contact the office of Affi

• List of at least 3 Professional References
• Resume/Curriculum Vitae
• Cover Letter
• List of at least 3 Professional References
• Military Discharge Documents ONLY (DD214/DD215/NGB22/DD256)
• Transcripts (unofficial with official required at hire)
• Other

Supplemental Questions

Required fields are indicated with an asterisk (*).

• * Are you currently a citizen or resident of the State of Illinois?
  • Yes
  • No
• * What is the highest level of education attained?
  • GED
  • High School Diploma
  • Associates Degree
  • Bachelors Degree
  • Masters Degree
  • PHD
• * Have you attached transcripts to support the degree(s) you are submitting for consideration with this posting?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Not Applicable
• * How many years of experience do you have in this type of position?
  • 0-1
  • 1-3
  • 3-5
  • 5-7
  • 7+
• * Please provide the name of the employer and the dates of employment where you gained this experience. Please note that this information must be verified on an NIU application and/or résumé. (“See Résumé” is not an acceptable response.) (Open Ended Question)
• * If applicable, have you attached a copy of your DD214, DD215, NGB22, or DD256 for consideration of Veterans Preference Points? The copy submitted should reflect the status of discharge in order to be considered.
  • Yes
  • No
  • Not Applicable