Assistant Director, National Fellowships

Department

College National Fellowships

About the Department

Office of National Fellowships

Job Summary

Reporting to the Director of the Office of National Fellowships, the Assistant Director serves as an advisor for all students applying for the national opportunities in an assigned portfolio, which is focused on early-career awards and support for international fellowships experiences such as Fulbright. The Assistant Director also provides general scholarship and fellowship advising to early-career students as they begin to consider national scholarships and fellowships that support their developing interests, including advising students on making the most of the University of Chicago in preparation for these types of competitive opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Provides substantive, comprehensive advising and writing support for candidates applying to the Fulbright US Student Program (Research/Study/ETA awards for undergraduates and recent alumni) and other international fellowships experiences; serve on Fulbright interview committees and participate in annual Fulbright programming.
• Works in partnership with the Office’s Fulbright Program Advisor (FPA) as well as other additional fellowships colleagues.
• Serves as the lead advisor and provides substantive writing support for early-career fellowships programs such as the Boren Scholarship, the Critical Language Scholarship, the suite of DAAD-sponsored fellowships including DAAD RISE, the Gilman Scholarship, the Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute Fellowship Program, the Udall Scholarship, as well as the Fulbright US-UK Summer Institutes.
• Plans the annual cycle of information sessions; creates, and executes targeted workshops relevant to candidate development, and collaborates with partner offices, faculty, and staff to identify competitive candidates.
• Creates educational resources, establishes effective application processes and best practices associated with these awards.
• Through effective promotion strategies, increases the number of competitive candidates applying annually to these targeted national scholarships and fellowships.
• Provides ad hoc advising for other scholarship and fellowship opportunities including, but not limited to, those focused on international experiences, foreign service, public service placement awards, and/or others as determined by the Director of National Fellowships and collegiate senior leadership.
• Prioritizes the awards specified above with the understanding that their portfolio may change in response to the changing needs of students, the national fellowships landscape, the Director of the Office of National Fellowship’s decisions, and/or the shifting priorities of university senior leadership.
• Participates in mock interviews for national finalists from other fellowships processes.
• Establishes sustainable and effective pipelines of competitive candidates by building and maintaining key relationships across campus in partnership with their colleagues in the Office of National Fellowships and CCRF leadership, including event management and innovative outreach efforts such as the residential deans’ dinners, first and second-year programs, and orientation events.
• Liaise and co-host events with academic departments and partner offices that are relevant to the fellowships in their portfolio, or to the priorities of the Office of National Fellowships.
• Develops and implements a successful communications strategy, including print and digital assets, to successfully educate students and recruit potential scholarship and fellowship applicants, with a special focus on early-career students.
• Helps to advance data management and fellowship assessment to evaluate engagement with national scholarships and fellowships.
• Provides exceptional developmental advising for all undergraduates, participates in professional development by attending national meetings and training specific to relevant scholarship and fellowship programs, and contributes to unit-wide initiatives including, but not limited to, supporting its undergraduate research operation, first and second-year programming, and participating in college-wide activities including orientation and graduation.
• Effectively represents the Office of National Fellowships, CCRF, and its positive impact on undergraduates and broader campus culture.
• Provides support to colleagues in the Office of Undergraduate Research by contributing fellowship-specific information sessions for the Quad Research Scholars programming, and other populations and programs supported by Office of Undergraduate Research.
• Provides support for the annual University of Chicago Undergraduate Research Symposium, a CCRF flagship program, as well as support annual sch