Senior Officer, Academic Administration

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Job Type:

Employee

Duration in Months (for fixed-term jobs):

N/A

Job Family:

Academic Administration

# of Open Positions:

1

Faculty/Service – Department:

Faculty of Social Sciences_Senior Officers_BEPC

Campus:

Main Campus

Union Affiliation:

SSUO

Date Posted:

November 21, 2024

Applications must be received BEFORE:

December 02, 2024

Hours per week:

35

Salary Grade:

SSUO Grade 08

Salary Range:

$62,218.00 – $78,589.00

About the Faculty of Social Sciences

The FSS comprises nine departments, schools and institutes, which offer undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs in both English and French. With its 10,000 students, 260 full-time professors, and wide array of programs and research centres, the Faculty of Social Sciences plays a key role at the heart of the University of Ottawa. Its graduate students are supervised by excellent researchers and undertake cutting-edge research in the Faculty’s masters and Ph.D. programs. Along with its complement of about 100 administrative employees, the faculty is proud to provide a collaborative working environment that inspires new ideas, encourages creative ingenuity, and promotes excellence.

Position purpose:

Under the supervision of the Lead Coordinator of Academic Administration, acts as the first point of contact for students by receiving, anticipating, acknowledging and responding to various student requests and provides an excellent customer service to attract, retain and maintain sufficient number of students in all programs of study. Performs administrative tasks such as assessing requests, making recommendations, approving certain requests and following up with students, colleagues and other faculties. As an ambassador for the University and the Faculty, attends convocation ceremonies and various events to promote the services of the University of Ottawa and the Faculty.

In this role, your main responsibilities will include:

Academic Development and Student Retention

• Evaluate student needs by analyzing, identifying, interpreting and translating student needs to determine which policies and procedures need to be activated.
• Support the planning process for student interventions by providing a diagnosis and recommendations to address student issues.
• Assist to the implementation process by providing relevant information to inform the approach for each intervention.
• Perform follow-ups for student files to facilitate meeting administrative and academic timelines.
• Redirect students to the appropriate services to ensure they receive proper support to help them pursue their studies.

Operations Management

• Analyze student files with conditional acceptance and/or equivalences, so the Academic Development and Student Retention Specialist can follow up with these students. Monitor these files to ensure that administrative and academic deadlines are respected.
• Serve as a first point of contact for students by receiving, acknowledging and taking action on student requests for modification to their selected program of study.
• Serve as a first point of contact for students by receiving and acknowledging student requests for course selection and registration. Determine the eligibility of the request. Based on eligibility, approve course selection for first year students and special students and perform the necessary steps to finalize requests.
• Evaluate files pertaining to academic performance and taking all necessary steps to populate relevant systems.
• Identify students in difficulty and students who might potentially experience academic difficulties by analyzing academic performance and other relevant data (ex. absenteeism rates). Share information with colleagues to alert them of potential student intervention opportunities.
• Serve as a first point of contact for student by receiving and acknowledging student requests pertaining to student mobility (ex. permission letters, agreements, etc.). Determine the students’ eligibility and coordinate the course selection to facilitate the transition to other programs and/or institutions.
• Graduation: Conduct a primary evaluation of files while respecting the policies and processes to identify and prepare files for graduation. Attend the graduation ceremony as an ambassador of the University.
• Coordinate the course selection process such as maintaining course sequences, ensuring the course schedule is available on SIS and reconciling enrolment limits (ex. classroom capacity versus registration and demand rates) and necessary activities related to these enrolment limits. Ascertain that follow-up actions are initiated within defined timelines to increase positive student experience.

What you will bring:

• Knowledge of administration normally acquired through post-secondary education and several years of experience in a similar role.
• Knowledge of academic programs at the high school, college, undergraduate and postgraduate levels
• Knowledge of and experience interpreting, communicating and applying processes, policies and methods
• Experience researching and analyzing data as well as creating administrative and statistical reports
• Experience in problem solving and decision making
• Experience in customer service
• Experience in implementing strategies and business plans for students
• Experience with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access), word processing, Windows and Internet
• Capacity to deal with conflicting priorities and respect strict deadlines in a fast paced environment
• Organizational skills, excellent judgment and attention to detail
• Ability to listen and a strong sense of work ethics

Bilingualism: French and English (spoken and written); to be considered for this position, candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Key Competencies at uOttawa:

Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa: 

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.

Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.

Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.

Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect, teamwork and inclusion, where collaboration, innovation, and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply, we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible, barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact hrtalentmanagement@uottawa.ca to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.

If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students, selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 – Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1, 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.

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