Director of Institutional Research, Assessment and Effectiveness

GENERAL SUMMARY

The overarching purpose of this role is to lead the College’s assessment and research efforts under the direction of the Executive Director, Strategy.

The Director will develop, lead, and champion a comprehensive institutional research and assessment program to support CCD’s mission and strategic goals.

The Director partners with academic and administrative units to guide the strategic planning efforts that underpin the curricular, analytical, informational, reporting, and regional accreditation needs of the College.

The Director is responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating a wide range of data related to CCD’s academic and business operations.

The Director will oversee the development of a wide range of Business Intelligence dashboards and ensure that end users have access to training in their use.

Fostering a culture of continuous improvement, the Director will supervise a team of professionals tasked with the daily research, survey design, analytics, and assessment and accreditation activities.

CCD is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The Director also oversees the College’s annual participation in the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) as well as CDHE’s Student Unit Record Data Systems (SURDS) term to term enrollment data collection.

Duties and Responsibilities

Supervision and Department Management

• Develop department annual strategic priorities and objectives.
• Collaborate with institutional partners to review, develop, update, and implement data governance and data sharing protocols.
• Provide leadership to ensure institutional research, data, and analytics are transparent and intentionally focused on improving the student experience.
• Supervise and lead the department including the full cycle of hiring and performance management.
• Conduct regular department meetings, individual 1 : 1’s, and project status updates.
• Manage and maintain department annual budget in partnership with fiscal department guidelines.
• Oversee daily activities of a highly talented team of institutional research professionals.
• Evaluate, analyze, and assess department processes and workflows to reposition department, achieve department goals, and appropriately interface with the College’s key constituents.
• Ensures the College’s institutional research and effectiveness website is current and provides college-wide data to appropriate internal and external audiences.

Institutional Effectiveness, Assessment, and Accreditation

• Serve as accreditation liaison and oversees accreditation efforts, i.e., the Higher Learning Commission regional accreditation process, and supports other discipline-based accreditation processes.
• Coordinate on-going development, implementation, and evaluation of an effectiveness plan for the entire institution by which CCD will measure improvement and holds itself accountable.
• Work with faculty, students, and staff to coordinate CCD’s approaches to assessment of student learning and of institutional effectiveness.

Lead groups working in a collaborative, strategy-driven environment.

• Consult with academic units to develop, measure, and analyze student learning outcomes and with support and administrative units to develop, measure, and analyze performance objectives.
• Assemble, track, and report evidence of progress toward strategic plan goals.
• Responsible for supporting and tracking continuous and systematic processes for institutional assessment and improvement.
• In partnership with executive leadership, cultivate strategic initiatives and objectives as well as innovative plans for academic assessment.

Data Management and Support

• Work with senior leaders to develop an institutional approach to data strategy that includes a common data language and common working data definitions that is in unison with higher education standards.
• Responsible for tracking and reporting on key institutional performance indicators.
• Develop, implement, launch, monitor, maintain, and make visible analytic dashboards and other high-quality data visualizations to support the College’s data informed decision processes.
• Conduct studies on student outcomes and operational objectives using College and external datasets (e.g., National Student Clearinghouse).
• Reviews research proposals for studies desiring to be done at CCD, ensuring appropriate review by the respective Institutional Review Board.

External Reporting and Regulation Compliance

• Supports resource development of program reviews, assessment, enrollment management, institutional grant applications, accreditation, strategic planning, required state and federal reports, survey design and analysis.
• Works cooperatively with the Colorado Community College System Institutional Research Department on college-related projects and reports.

Provides data and research for compliance in meeting the goals of the Colorado Community College System.

Provide leadership over institutional data reporting for federal and state requirements (IPEDS, SURDS, etc.)

Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS : Any equivalent combination of education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Education : (Required)

Master’s degree in information systems, Social Science, Educational Leadership, Measurement / Evaluation / Statistics / Assessment, or related field with two (2) years of direct experience in Institutional Effectiveness and / or assessment of student learning outcomes and.

Bachelor’s degree in social science, Education, Evaluation, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field with four (4) years of direct experience in Institutional Effectiveness and / or Institutional Research

Experience : (Required)

• Three years of progressive administrative experience.
• Three years of budget management experience.
• Experience in quantitative research methodology, statistical analysis, and interpretation of findings.
• Experience with qualitative research methodology.
• Familiarity with forecasting, predictive modeling, simulation, and longitudinal analysis.
• Familiarity with federal and state mandatory reporting.
• Strong technical experience in data management, data mining, and programming.

KNOWLEDGE / SKILLS / ABILITIES (Required) :

• Strong quantitative and qualitative methodology and research design, including strong statistical skills.
• Knowledge of both state and federal higher education reporting requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to work well in a collaborative decision-making environment.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze and synthesize results to effectively communicate with a wide variety of audiences.
• Experience working with data dictionaries and in the use of computer applications to extract and manipulate data and produce statistical reports and analysis, and / or experience in survey design, administration, and analysis and in reporting institutional data (Tableau, Power BI, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Qualtrics, or other statistical tools)
• An ideal candidate has excellent interpersonal skills, be a dynamic communicator, and have the demonstrated ability to be an effective supervisor.
• Experience managing multiple projects and strict deadlines while maintaining high degree of accuracy.
• Proven project management, organizational, multi-tasking, problem-solving, prioritizing, and time management skills.
• Possess a strong awareness of the community college mission and accreditation standards.

Education : (Preferred)

• Terminal degree in a related field of study
• Background in Knowledge Management, Information Systems, Data Science, or Informatics

Experience : (Preferred)

• Five years of professional experience in the assessment of learning outcomes in higher education.
• Three years of progressive experience in data analytics in higher education.
• Demonstrated success in collaborating with faculty, staff, and administrators on institutional initiatives.
• Experience with predictive analytics, including enrollment modeling.
• Experience with assessment of student learning.
• Familiarity with higher education accreditation.
• Experience in a community college setting or familiarity with community college data.
• Experience with IBM Cognos Analytics and Ellucian Banner
• Experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting data to an accrediting agency or governing body, and monitoring compliance.

Supplemental Information

Our campus is located in downtown Denver, adjacent to two light rail stations, and just minutes away from shopping, restaurants, and event venues.

When you visit our campus, it will be immediately evident that our faculty, staff, and instructors are passionate about serving our diverse student population.

At CCD our passion is to help others, and we offer career pathways that will make a difference in the lives of our students.