Boston College Introduction
Founded in 1863, Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic university located six miles from downtown Boston with an enrollment of 9,654 full-time undergraduates and 5,072 graduate and professional students. Ranked 37 among national universities, Boston College has 923 full-time and 1,336 FTE faculty, 2,822 non-faculty employees, an operating budget of $1.4 billion, and an endowment in excess of $3.9 billion.
Job Description
The Associate Director serves as the primary data steward and bridge across Enrollment, Financial Aid, and Student Accounts/Billing. This experienced, self-motivated professional works autonomously to deliver high-quality data products and strategic expertise, including on-demand and automated reporting, advanced analytics, data modeling, and robust data-level testing. This role requires a strong blend of functional higher education business knowledge and advanced technical expertise. Key technical competencies include database languages (SQL, Python), advanced spreadsheets (Excel, Google Sheets), and modern business intelligence/visualization platforms (Tableau, Power BI, Cognos).
This role serves as a gatekeeper for our organization’s data so stakeholders can understand critical student data to make operational and academic related decisions. This role requires not only knowledge of business processes and relevant data but also requires technical skills and experience. This role supports Student Services and serves in a strategic role focused on using data and information to support the goals of the university.
Core & Leadership Competencies
- Strategic Communication and Customer Focus: Exceptional ability to synthesize complex, high-volume data into clear, non-technical summaries, and actionable insights for executive leadership and university partners.
- People Leadership and Development: Proven success in mentoring and developing technical staff, fostering collaborative team dynamics, and elevating data capabilities.
- Analytical Problem-Solving: Highly curious, detail-oriented, and proactive in architecting scalable solutions to data anomalies.
- Cross-functional Collaboration and Teamwork: Strong relationship-building skills to partner effectively with technical product teams, engineers, and functional student service stakeholders.
- Openness to Change, Applying Technology, Adaptability & Innovation: Eagerness to evaluate and integrate emerging trends, including modern BI features, advanced data architecture, and the practical application of AI in the data analytics space.
Full-Time Equivalent Hiring Range: $113,200 to $141,500; salary commensurate with relevant experience.
Requirements
Core Functionality:
- Plays a leadership role in collaborating, coordinating, and proactively engaging across the university to ensure that data standards, data literacy, and usage are consistent and accurate.
- Lead and manage ongoing critical data governance processes, activities, outputs, and ongoing improvements, including:
o Establishing a robust business data dictionary for student financial, academic, and enrollment data.
o Training the data user community on data literacy / definitions; standards; templates.
o Rolling out self-service reporting modules / access as appropriate, which includes partnering with the broader technical and user community.
o Monitoring data access, usage, and conducting an annual audit of user access levels.
o Continuously evaluating data requests to improve accuracy, efficiency, and opportunities for self-service.
- Mentor, coach, and guide the internal data and reporting team, the student services information systems team, and data partners to:
o manage the team of data analysts and data specialists to support all student financial systems, enrollment, and curriculum reporting.
o manage the workload, assignment, and completion of data & reporting tasks, projects, communications, etc.
o ensure accurate, consistent, and timely responses to data requests.
o act as a thought partner and collaborator on data integration efforts.
o triage and resolve applicable data issues (troubleshooting / production support).
o provide data level testing support and expertise.
o direct the team to focus on ways to improve service and outcomes.
- Interpret data, analyze results, and provide accurate reports.
- Create and maintain standard data sources and reports.
- Develop and implement databases, data collection systems, and other strategies that optimize efficiency and ensure high-quality output.
- Manage, implement, train, communicate, and continuously improve data-related activities (reporting tools, data usage and accuracy, troubleshooting issues).
- Work closely with users/requesters to understand data needs/requirements; interpret data, analyze results, and provide accurate reports to end customers.
- Create appropriate documentation that allows stakeholders to understand the steps of the data analysis process and duplicate or replicate the analysis if necessary.
- Identify, analyze, and interpret trends or patterns in complex data sets.
- Filter and “clean” data by reviewing reports.
- Work with management to prioritize business and information needs.
- Create and maintain standard data sources and reports.
- Develop and implement databases, data collection systems, and other strategies that optimize efficiency and ensure high-quality output.
- Work closely with downstream consumers of student systems data to ensure consistency and accuracy of data use.
- Seek to understand complex data structures and identify opportunities for process improvements and recommend system modifications; implement applicable recommendations.
- Expert-level proficiency in writing and performance-tuning complex SQL queries. Strong hands-on experience with Oracle databases, EDWs, and ODS environments.
- Deep familiarity with higher education data structures, specifically registrar workflows, financial aid, student accounts, and FERPA regulations.
- Proficiency in collecting, organizing, analyzing datasets using statistical tools, and advanced spreadsheet platforms.
- Absolute commitment to maintaining the accuracy, security, and confidentiality of student academic and financial records within a secure environment.
- Strong familiarity with higher education data structures, specifically concerning Enrollment / Academics, Financial Aid, and Student Accounts/Billing workflows.
- Technical expertise regarding data models, database design development, data mining and segmentation techniques.
- Knowledge of statistics and experience using statistical packages for analyzing datasets (Excel, Google Sheet, etc.)
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to collect, organize, analyze, and disseminate significant amounts of information with attention to detail and accuracy.
- Adept at queries, report writing, presenting analysis, and findings
- Functional understanding of student information and degree audit systems
- Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
- Understanding student academic records policies and practices, regulations, is essential
- Expert knowledge of the university’s academic policies and practices.
- Exceptional interpersonal, collaboration, and communication skills.
- Ability to multitask, manage frequent interruptions, and work effectively in a team-based environment.
Closing Statement
Boston College offers a broad and competitive range of benefits depending on your job classification eligibility:
- Tuition remission for Employees
- Tuition remission for Spouses and Children who meet eligibility requirements
- Generous Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
- Low-Cost Life Insurance
- Eligibility for both University-Funded 401k and Employer-Sponsored 403b Retirement Plans
- Paid Holidays Annually
- Generous Sick and Vacation Pay
- Additional benefits can be found on https://www.bc.edu/employeehandbook
Boston College conducts pre-employment background checks as part of the hiring process.
Boston College is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected category, including disability and protected veteran status. Boston College's Notice of Nondiscrimination can be viewed at https://www.bc.edu/nondiscrimination.
