Assistant Director - Institutional Research

Primary Location:

3452 Spur 399, McKinney, Texas, 75069

We are searching for candidates that meet the required qualifications and experience and are able to perform the essential duties and responsibilities.

Job Summary:

Provide operational and analytical leadership in support of the director of institutional research by leading complex analytical projects and driving innovation in tools and methods, maintaining institutional standards across all IRO deliverables, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and professional development across the department.

Required Qualifications:

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage the unit project portfolio in coordination with the director by assigning and monitoring project workloads across analysts and coordinators, adjusting timelines and resource allocation when competing priorities shift, and assuming day-to-day management of unit-level projects when delegated.

• Oversee the implementation and consistent execution of unit process standards, identify opportunities for unit or divisional process improvement and contribute to the development of divisional process standards in coordination with the director.

• Serve as a campus-wide collaborator for strategic initiatives when delegated by the director, representing the IRO on institutional committees and working groups and building sustained partnerships that influence mid-level managers and cross-functional project teams.

• Lead the development of unit-level documentation standards by applying innovative frameworks and progressive approaches, creating documentation for complex analytical processes and institutional reporting cycles, and coaching staff on documentation quality and knowledge transfer.

• Explore and pilot emerging tools and analytical technologies to identify innovation opportunities, leading the adoption of innovative approaches to data work and analytical tooling, driving change management planning for tool transitions and workflow redesigns, and supporting IRO staff through the implementation of new tools and processes.

• Maintain and enforce quality-assurance frameworks for unit analytical outputs, ensure consistency of data, methods, and findings across reports and systems, and lead cross-department coordination on systemic data integrity issues when delegated by the director.

• Oversee data-collection operations across institutional reporting cycles, ensure all collection activities align with institutional needs and comply with external reporting standards, coordinate with stakeholders to resolve complex cross-system issues, and drive department-level resolution of systemic collection gaps.

• Monitor the consistent application of unit and division-level coding standards to ensure maintainability and knowledge transfer, review and approve scripts and automation tools before deployment, lead cross-team development projects.

• Lead the development of complex analytical reporting systems by synthesizing findings across analytical workstreams into coherent institutional narratives, ensure all reporting outputs are tailored to the needs and expectations of diverse audiences from operational staff to senior leadership, and implement and promote best reporting practices across the unit.

• Implement and monitor visual communication standards grounded in progressive practices, evaluate the quality and effectiveness of visualization deliverables across the unit and ensure analytical products meet accessibility, accuracy, and audience-appropriateness standards prior to publication.

• Conduct complex analytical studies in collaboration with the director, contribute input during the design phase as requested, execute the studies as designed, and develop findings and recommendations that translate analytical insights into actionable institutional guidance.

• Contribute to institutional messaging through compelling, data-driven narratives, support the integration of analytical insights into decision-making at all levels, and present complex findings to diverse audiences including senior leadership and executive stakeholders.

• Mentor and provide technical and professional guidance to senior data analysts, data analysts, and data coordinators, supporting skill development in analysis, visualization, documentation, scripting, and data storytelling practices.

• Administer institution-wide integrated survey projects, including research design consultation, sampling methodology, data analysis, and executive-level reporting.

Supplemental Functions

Perform other duties as assigned.
Perform all duties to maintain all standards in accordance with college policies, proce