Program Director, Harris Social Impact Fellowship

Department

Harris Harris School Social Impact Fellowship Sub Group

About the Department

Policy with real impact doesn’t evolve from ideology or intuition, or even experience. At the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, developing effective public policy is a science, based on data and measurable impact .Addressing today’s interconnected, global challenges requires rigorous inquiry. It also requires innovative people who will face the facts, gather data, and understand why current policies exist to improve them. For more than 30 years, the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy has been steadfastly committed to serving society by advancing analysis- and evidence-informed policy. Guided by this exacting mission, our community of faculty, students, and alumni from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors are taking on the world’s most important problems by using the latest tools of social science. Harris Public Policy offers a full range of degree and executive education programs and is the academic home to research centers, institutes, and labs that study and engage the public on areas such as conflict, democracy and effective government, economic and political development, education, energy and environment, health, municipal finance, public safety, social policy, and urban policy.

Job Summary

The Program Director provides programmatic and operational leadership for the Harris Social Impact Fellowship (HSIF), a flagship initiative of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Reporting to the Executive Director and partnering closely with the Faculty Director, the Program Director manages the full lifecycle of Fellowship operations and delivery within the programmatic direction, growth strategy, and quality standards set by the Executive Director. The role executes fellow recruitment and selection against the architecture set by the Executive Director, manages confirmed partnerships and program budget execution, supervises student workers, and represents the Fellowship at the operational level to faculty and staff partners, placement institutions, and peer programs, safeguarding academic rigor, operational quality, and the Harris brand.

Responsibilities

• Supports the design and delivery of the fellowship curriculum and experience with the Faculty Director, coordinating annual design cycles, faculty engagement, and integration of research centers across UChicago to ensure academic rigor and institutional alignment.
• Translates the growth strategy and program priorities set by the Executive Director into detailed program plans and execution, and supports expansion work such as placement diversification and applicant-pool engagement.
• Manages the day-to-day operational relationships across Harris and the University that keep the Fellowship running, including project-level coordination with faculty and research center staff (Urban Labs, BIP Lab, Mansueto Institute, and others), career services, admissions, finance, and OLC.
• Manages the ongoing operational relationship with confirmed external partners (research organizations, social impact employers, government and policy institutions, and host placement sites), running regular check-ins, tracking deliverables, and flagging renewal or escalation moments to the Executive Director, who sources new partnerships and re-engages at those points.
• Executes the national recruitment plan set by the Executive Director, including operational outreach, pipeline management with priority feeder institutions, and applicant engagement, and reports pipeline performance against the yield targets set by the Executive Director.
• Runs the full selection process end-to-end against the assessment framework, interview design, and evaluation rubrics set by the Executive Director, and surfaces cohort recommendations for final decision by the Executive Director and Faculty Director.
• Manages the full fellow lifecycle from recruitment through alumni integration, implementing the professional standards, mentorship structures, crisis protocols, and alumni engagement platform designed by the Executive Director, and running day-to-day alumni communications.
• Builds and maintains the operational network of post-fellowship career opportunities, including employer and institutional contacts, opportunity mapping across the sectors set by the Executive Director, individual career-development touchpoints with fellows and alumni, placement tracking, and connecting specific fellows and alumni to specific roles.
• Runs day-to-day operations for the Fellowship, including cross-unit coordination, information flow, and operational handoffs across the Fellowship team, faculty leads, host institutions, and University units, within the governance and escalation framework set by the Executive Director.