LAMSON HALL - Asst/Assoc Dean Women's Res Hall

Job Classification

  Salaried Full-time (75-100%)

Position summary

The Assistant/Associate Dean provides assistance to the Dean, whose leadership directs and administers all facets of a university residence hall community, including strategic planning and the daily operation of a wide variety of responsibilities including staffing, programming, fiscal and facility management and resident nurture and accountability.

Qualifications summary

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and /or ability required:
Moderate to proficient skills in business administration, organization, conflict resolution, first response counseling, living learning teaching, discipline, public speaking, group dynamics, leadership and youth ministry.


Must be a Seventh-day Adventist in good and regular standing.

Duties and responsibilities

Assists in the management and direction of the daily operations of the residence life system including programming for and responding to spiritual, social, community building, physical and educational needs.
Facilitates connection between residents and academic success measures through Student Success, academic departments, tutoring, weekly check-ins, etc.
Coordinates social programs for residence hall wide social events as well as training and keeping track of RA/SD social programs. Assists in facilitation of an environment which stimulates student responsibility and accountability within the residence community. 
Coordinates, develops, and delivers public presentations on spiritual and educational topics. 
Manages and stays up to date with the day to day functions of the health club, hires desk receptionists and does training/evaluations with each team member.
Participates with staff in the assessment of and meeting of student needs for support, advising, counseling and areas of crisis management such as mental health and medical emergencies. 
Participates in the judicial affairs process for all women in residential life by a system of expectations and consequences. 
Participates in development, interpretation, and dissemination of university and residence hall policy for students. 
Participates in staffing responsibilities including recruitment and selection of salaried, hourly and student staff members.  Participates in development of pre-service and in-service training, workshops and development for student employees. 
Maintains a working relationship with staff.
Maintains an open working relationships and serves as the liaison with administration, faculty, parents, alumni, student groups and other constituents throughout the university regarding student life issues on an individual basis as well as serving on a variety of committees. 
Maintains professional contact outside the University through involvement in professional organizations/activities and collaborations with Student Service professionals at other institutions.

Supervisory responsibilities

The Assistant/Associate Dean carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with Andrews University policies and applicable laws.
Responsibilities include assisting the director with interviewing, hiring and training professional and student staff, job description preparations and assignments, scheduling, directing work, appraising performance and addressing complaints and resolving problems. 
Directly supervises all student health club employees by coordinating coverage for health club hours, scheduling, communications, networking, etc.
Supervises and participates with staff in the nurturing and holding students accountable to expectations including substance abuse, overnight leave and curfew guidelines, worship attendance, and other general citizenship areas.

Qualifications

A masters degree in a related field and/or 1-2 years of experience as a residence hall dean are minimal requirements for this job.
Excellent English language and communication skills are required to be able to effectively interface with a wide variety of individuals and entities including administration, colleagues, teachers, staff, students, parents and the general public. These skills must include the ability to read, analyze and interpret, and the ability to write reports, business correspondence and procedure manuals.
The person in this position must also be able to communicate well in both personal and public venues. She is responsible for excellence in verbal communication and counseling, and in the public presentation of devotional and educational topics.
Basic mathematical skills are needed to perform assigned and misc duties.
Superb abstract and concrete reasoning and problem solving skills are required to be able to make decisions that have a huge and deep impact on the mental, physical, social and spiritual welfare of residents and staff that are in the work environment. The ability to prioritize huge amounts of responsibilities in a critical and timely fashion is an essential requirement: it is especially important in this community in which most residents are young adults many of whom are facing such emotionally draining and unforeseen tragedies as parental divorce, family death, breakups of relationships, depressions/mental health issues, etc. Despite the need to immediately and effectively address these crises, residence hall life and services must continue.
Reasoning ability is also required in dealing with a population, by sheer definition of their developmental tasks, that demands reasons and rationale for policies and services, and living with the awkward and conflicting needs for both autonomy and nurture.


Must be a Seventh-day Adventist in good and regular standing.

Technical competencies

Able to learn and effectively navigate computer programs used by the university and Microsoft Suite.

Interpersonal interactions

Must be comfortable interacting with students of the same and different backgrounds.
 

Physical demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential function of this job.
The job often requires full use of all body senses and most limbs of the body for office work such as data entry, duplication, walking, climbing stairs, listening, and observing both body language and environmental factors.
The job also requires sharp mental skills and emotional balance.
The largest physical demand may be the ability to handle the stress of balancing both the responsibilities of the job and the critical decisions regarding student lives. Another aspect is the high demand 7-day work week that can average 60+ hours a week and that often require work hours well beyond midnight.  Those in this profession must contend not only with unusually long hours, but with an on-call schedule that includes nights, weekends, summers, and all holidays as a residence hall is open and active 24 hours a day, every single day of the year.  The individual must have high physical stamina and be able to adjust to very frequent interruptions from sleep and family time.

Work environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. The Assistant/Associate Dean must be willing to live in a facility with 500 college women, which means that there is limited privacy, frequent interruptions and a high volume of traffic and disruption.  She must be able to handle prescribed daily tasks while accommodating constant interruptions.
An environment that houses 500+ will be more inconvenienced with construction, repairs to basic life-support systems, and environmental factors than most of the rest of the campus.  For example, a campus department may close down for a portion of the summer to accommodate a building project, a residence hall committed to providing year-round housing may not. A campus department is not severely inconvenienced by a power outage at night, water being turned off, a computer system down for upgrade, etc. but a residence hall housing 500 persons with 500 individual study and sleep schedules is.