Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Student Life

Engineering a world of possibilities

The Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Student Life directly manages and supports the VP in their initiatives, operations, daily activities, events, projects, and communications. The person in this position provides professional direction, guidance, and interface between the VP and internal and external constituencies. As a member of the Student Life Senior Leadership Team, the EA works alongside colleagues to advance various divisional initiatives and executes identified priorities. Working collaboratively, the EA supports VP-level and divisional events, activities, and communications.  The EA acts autonomously, managing projects from inception to completion without much supervision, anticipating needs, and following through on assignments.

At times, the EA may attend meetings alongside the VP or attend in their place and is a confidant and liaison to the VP. The EA must be adept at working with diverse students, staff, faculty, and external contacts, ensuring that communication style and approach are appropriate to the audience. The EA must have experience and skills in working with diverse individuals and groups and must nuance their approach to support equitable experiences and outcomes. The EA must also be skilled at diffusing conflict and must be able to handle highly confidential information.

Our ideal candidate is a superb communicator with the ability to serve in a leadership capacity for projects and initiatives, and maintains a high level of attention to detail, planning, organizing, and event/meeting planning skills. The successful candidate will bring significant organization and prioritization skills and is adept at ensuring that others feel heard and validated, while also standing firm and in support of institutional policy and/or decisions. Additionally, this person is a creative ‘self-starter’ who regularly seeks and provides feedback to their supervisor and peers.

The EA role requires an on-campus presence. While limited remote work may be approved, the EA should expect to be on campus M-F between 8am and 5pm regularly.

  

Responsibilities: 

The EA’s primary role is to manage and support the initiatives, operations, and day-to-day activities of the VP collaboratively and productively. This is achieved through a high level of planning, organizational skills, setting priorities, and high-quality service skills. Specific actions include:

• Ensuring that leaders within the Division of Student Life have appropriate access to the VP, are properly involved in the decision-making process and are familiar with various issues impacting Student Life functions and the student experience at Mines.
• Ensuring timely and appropriate responses to issues presented to the VP Office.
• Conducting research, analyzing findings, and reporting on them to others. The EA handles confidential and sensitive materials, as well as those that require analyzing before composing detailed responses to the VP or others.
• Proactively address critical details for projects and/or events, complete and record appropriate follow-up tasks, and generally follow through on expectations. 

Within the set of broad responsibilities, the EA is specifically responsible for, but not limited to:

Executive Support

• Provides direct management and support of the VP, their initiatives, projects, day-to-day activities and other matters.
• Manages the VP’s calendar and related administrative functions, including travel, and supports the VP in a collaborative, proactive, and effective manner to minimize routine administrative matters of the VP while keeping the VP apprised of related and relevant issues.
• Guides the VP’s workflow, creating systems to identify recurring and/or cyclical projects and/or decisions that require the VP’s attention and structuring the VP’s calendar and time appropriately to address these needs. They use data to inform the work and are comfortable with basic data collection and analysis techniques.

Meetings, Events and Presentations

• Reviews, prepares, and summarizes reports, PowerPoint presentations and other materials as necessary ensuring that the documents, presentations, and materials are timely, accurate, complete, inclusive, and professionally formatted.
• Authors concise briefing documents for the VP that address a variety of topics for recurring and ad hoc meetings.
• Coordinates events and meetings for the VP and division of Student Life, including setting agendas, preparing materials in advance, scheduling and attending to all event/meeting logistics. The EA ensures that meetings and events sponsored by the VP and/or division are both accessible to and inclusive of diverse participants.

Budget and Expense Reporting

• Manages numerous budgets on behalf of the VP, inclu