Assistant Director of Public Programming

We are seeking an Assistant Director of Public Programming at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University will lead and oversee all public programs and events under the dialogue function of the SNF Agora Institute. Through these programs, SNF Agora carries out its scholarship and approach to university students, faculty, and staff, and to the wider public in the United States and across the globe.

About SNF Agora Institute

The SNF Agora Institute, founded in 2017, is a multi-disciplinary academic and public forum dedicated to strengthening global democracy by improving and expanding civic engagement and informed, inclusive dialogue, and by supporting inquiry that leads to real-world change. By building integrated partnerships with scholars, practitioners, students, and the public, we use research to identify and sharpen strategic choices that members of the public and civic and political stakeholders around the world can make to realize the promise of democracy.

SNF Agora organizes its work around three functions: discovery, design, and dialogue. Discovery is the work its scholars do catalyzing transformative, multi-disciplinary inquiry, to understand pluralism, democracy, difference and domination around the world, and to identify possible interventions. Design encompasses its efforts to collaborate with practitioners to translate academic research into usable knowledge for the world and ensure that knowledge created in communities of practice feeds back to shape scholarly inquiry. And Dialogue is its modeling and sharing of its mission with the public through teaching, training, writing, and convening, in order to strengthen citizens’ capacity for productive participation and leadership in democracy.

Under the Dialogue umbrella, SNF Agora hosts a number of recurring signature events, such as the University Debate Initiative, Democracy Day, the Elijah E. Cummings Democracy and Freedom Festival, and an annual international convening to name a few. It also hosts and co-hosts a number of individual public events throughout the academic year with institute faculty, senior and visiting fellows, students, and external partners: examples include symposia, webinars, workshops, book talks and film screenings.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

• Reporting directly to the SNF Agora Managing Director, the SNF Agora Assistant Director of Public Programming will lead and oversee the University Debate Initiative and be the staff lead on all the institute’s other public programs – co-developing and otherwise coordinating their content, design, and implementation with relevant institute faculty, fellows, and staff, student and faculty partners around the university, and external partners. Among their duties, the Assistant Director of Public Programming will:
• Directly supervise the SNF Agora Events Planner and a student research assistant(s).
• Design, develop, and implement all programs under the university debate initiative – including two marquee public debates per year, several smaller-scale debates – represent the Institute with key partners on major debates hosted in partnership with other organizations.
• Identify and develop best practices for the execution of the debates, including through the use of emergent technologies and systems.
• Moderate marquee debates, bringing a high-level of expertise that allows for mutual conversation and evokes interesting dialogue.
• Co-design and co-lead implementation of all other signature public events of the institute, in partnership with the institute Director, Managing Director, and relevant staff/faculty/student partners, currently including Democracy Day, The Elijah E. Cummings Democracy and Freedom Festival, An annual international convening.
• Co-design and coordinate implementation of the institute’s faculty- and fellow-led public programs – at the Baltimore campus, DC campus, and off-site venues.
• Collaborate with key university stakeholders and across various departments within the University on all of the above, working in close partnership with the Office of the President, Homewood Student Affairs and University Special Events, Office of Student Affairs, and student organizations; facilitate relationships with university leadership and key stakeholders to brainstorm and conceptualize new programs.
• Co-design and coordinate implementation of public programs that are hosted by external partners and co-hosted or co-sponsored by the institute; serve as the main point of contact for external event partners generally as the senior representative for the Institute.

 For all of the above, the Assistant Director may be expected to

• Determine the content and format, ensuring relevance to SNF Agora’s mission and strategic goals, research speaker/performer options, draft and