Institutional Researcher (25:001)

Term of App't: Monday - Friday, 17.5 hours per week

Start date: Immediately

Location: To be determined (Dawson Creek or Fort St John, BC)

Reporting to: Vice President, Academic & Research

Experience Northern BC with a career at Northern Lights College!

Northern Lights College (NLC) is located throughout northern British Columbia, an area with vibrant natural resources, history, and culture. NLC's mission is to enrich the lives, communities, and industry in northern British Columbia through accessible and applied learning. The College offers a welcoming and inclusive work environment where innovation and creativity are welcomed. NLC provides a generous compensation package with health benefits, excellent pension plan, and the opportunity for personal and professional growth.

Salary/Benefits: Excluded position: Grid 13, $48,323.00 - $64,430.50 annually, depending on experience and qualifications as per NLC's Excluded Salary Scale. An excellent benefit package is offered, including extended health and dental benefits. Annual vacation is pro-rated and front-loaded, based on 105 hours/FTE, as well as time off paid for the period between Christmas and New Year's Day. Enrolment in the College Pension Plan is mandatory for those in this role, with the standard contributions matched by the employer.

Description:

The Institutional Researcher is responsible to lead, shape, build, and deliver an institutional research office that is aligned with the vision and direction of the College in an expansion of the programs and of the diversity of students we serve through data-informed planning and decision making. The Institutional Researcher has overall responsibility for the systems operations of the department.

In this role, the successful candidate will provide oversight and leadership that will enable Senior Leadership strategic decision making in planning, development, implementation, evaluation and management of strategic research, and decision support; providing critical support to the College's ongoing planning processes by reporting key metrics (KPIs) that measure the College's progress and identify areas of improvement and opportunity. As the Institutional Researcher, they will be responsible for the planning and development of a system that supports strategic initiatives, course planning, performance metric modeling, and decision-making across the College. The Institutional Researcher will assume a leadership role in governing the effective use, and management of institutional research and analytic data. As an effective team builder and mentor, the Institutional Researcher will effectively direct and manage all Institutional Research (IR) office activities and projects to ensure deadlines are met, that the work is evaluated for accuracy and quality of data and will ensure that the College's needs are effectively met for timely, predictive analytics and information.

The Institutional Researcher facilitates, informs, and provides advice on the development and updating of targets for all faculties and programs including student recruitment targets; and will investigate and report on the impact of services, programs, and initiatives on student retention and success. They will ensure that all Ministry reports, performance measures, space utilization, and the Central Data Warehouse submissions and/or requests for information are submitted as required, by establishing and maintaining a reports management system.

In addition, they are responsible for effective recruitment of qualified IR department staff and establishing the expected standards of work, managing individual/team performance in work assignments, evaluating performance and providing regular and ongoing feedback in support of development, and proactively managing conflict and performance management.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Master's degree in social sciences, data analytics, educational administration, economics or public administration, or a related discipline may be considered.
• Significant senior level experience in advanced educational leadership roles or equivalent in related research and/or public sector environment; and direct experience in institutional research is required.
• Demonstrated experience in project planning and management and process improvement with the ability to manage multiple projects with efficiency.
• Knowledge of post-secondary education, with several years of extensive educational administration.
• Knowledge of post-secondary policies and procedures and a thorough understanding of the principles of institutional research and planning.
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning.
• Demonstrated expertise in research methods including advanced skills in statistical analysis, database manipulation, and data modeling.
• Demonstrated advanced skills in the design and execution of research and analytic projects and enrolment modeling.
• Demonstrated skill in writing concise, high-level analytical summaries and business reports, providing effective visual presentations appropriate to the audience.
• The ability to establish and develop professional and collaborative relations with stakeholders throughout the institution, including senior leadership, managers, faculty, staff, the ministry, and other external agencies.
• Ability to work frequently under tight deadlines, high pressure and at extremely short notice to respond to Senior leadership immediate demand for information and data.
• Expertise in the use of Colleague or similar higher education student information system; Argos, or similar enterprise reporting solutions, is preferred.
• A competent knowledge of business analytic tools and survey tools.
• A competent knowledge of personal computers and mainframe applications for data acquisition and analysis is required. Personal computer knowledge must include the ability to prepare documents, reports, spreadsheets, and databases using a variety of PC programs.
• Willingness to travel, as needed.
• Current, valid driver's license.