Mount Holyoke College Hiring for Associate Director of SAW Program at South Hadley, MA Full Time

Position Type: Staff Full-time

Hours per week: 37.5   

Weeks per year: 48

Work Schedule: Monday through Friday 

Department Summary & Job Purpose:

The Speaking, Arguing, and Writing (SAW) Program is one of the core programs of the Weissman Center for Leadership. SAW’s mission is to empower leaders who think critically and creatively and who write and speak persuasively. SAW Peer Mentors encourage students to think critically about their social contexts, study language use rigorously, and claim their own voices.

The SAW Associate Director serves as the administrative head of the SAW Program, providing dynamic mentorship for SAW student staff and ensuring the program’s visibility and effectiveness across campus. The Associate Director is responsible for the SAW’s daily operations and communicates across departments, programs, and offices to build and maintain involvement with relevant academic initiatives on campus. The Associate Director manages the work of all SAW student staff, including 50-60 peer-peer mentors, 8-10 receptionists, and one student administrative assistant. This position includes the supervision of day-to-day operations of the SAW Center and course mentoring activities, including scheduling payroll and budgeting. The Associate Director works in collaboration with the Faculty Director to shape the mission of the SAW Program and its strategic plan, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, develop innovative programming, and engage in reflective assessment practices.

Core Job Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Recruits, manages, and provides ongoing development and support to peer mentoring and receptionist staff. 
• Conducts program development and management, including collaborating with the Faculty Director in updating program policies, procedures, and documents, and collaborates with departments across campus to build resources to support students in writing and public speaking scholarship. 
• Maintains the SAW Center and Public Speaking Room and associated technologies. 
• Conducts marketing and communications for the SAW Program and Center, including organizing and communicating historical and current data and other material on program initiatives and impacts.
• Manages the annual SAW Program budget, including bi-weekly payroll processing for approximately 60+ student workers. 
• Engages in professional development through interoffice collaborations and at the writing center, public speaking, and assessment conferences. 
• Evaluates the effectiveness and impact of the SAW Program by developing and maintaining methods of ongoing assessment and data collection processes. 
• Coordinates a broad mentor hiring outreach campaign each fall semester, including hosting information sessions for prospective mentors, information tables at the Community Center, and multimodal advertising across departments. 
• Manages the practicum for CUSP-212 Peer Mentoring: Theory and Practice student practicum. 

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s Degree
• Two years of full-time, administrative support experience working in higher education and with student workers
• Demonstrated interest in writing centers or related fields
• Demonstrated understanding of values and expectations of a women’s college that is gender diverse and committed to working with diverse populations
• Demonstrated organization skills, follow-through, and attention to detail
• Strong human relations and interpersonal skills to maintain effective, professional, and cooperative working relationships with supervisors, coworkers, student staff, and the campus community
• Ability to work as part of a team, as well as independently, on a wide variety of projects
• Good judgment in decision-making and the ability to maintain confidentiality

Preferred Qualifications:

• Five years full-time experience in higher education program administration and supervising student workers
• Master’s degree in related field (English or other languages, composition and rhetoric, communication, pedagogy, etc)
• Experience monitoring and reconciling budgets
• Agility and familiarity with Google suite, Canva, and spreadsheets; writing center or other program administration software; higher education administration systems such as Colleague; course management systems such as Moodle

License/Certifications:

Compliance Requirements: 

Physical Demands: 

• Sedentary work: Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time.

Working Conditions: 

• Typical office or administrative work. The employee is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions.  

Background Checks:

Mount Holyoke College is committed to providing a safe and secure environment, supported by qualified employees that will allow all of its students, faculty, staff and those associated with them to successfully carry out the mission of the college. As a condition of employment, the College will conduct appropriate background checks for all new hires. Mount Holyoke has designated the Office of Human Resources as the office responsible for ensuring that background checks (CORI, SORI, Credit History, & Driver Credential) are completed and utilized in the hiring process and Five College Office of Compliance and Risk Management as the office responsible for facilitating background checks as articulated in this policy.

Special Instructions for Applicants: 

Apply online; application materials must include:

Mount Holyoke College is a women’s college that is gender diverse. The College is committed to providing equal access and opportunity in employment and education to all employees and students. In compliance with state and federal law, Mount Holyoke College does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, genetic information, sex, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, ancestry, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected status under federal, state or local law. The College does not discriminate on the basis of gender in the recruitment and admission of students to its graduate program.

Mount Holyoke College is an Equal Opportunity Employer.