Executive Director, Institutional Research

Job Title

Executive Director, Institutional Research

Agency

Prairie View A&M University

Department

Institutional Research and Effectiveness

Proposed Minimum Salary

Commensurate

Job Location

Prairie View, Texas

Job Type

Staff

Job Description

The Director of Institutional Research oversees the Office of Institutional Research and Integrated Data Analytics, overseeing the mission-critical university functions including planning, data governance, research, reporting, and support of university and senior leadership initiatives. The director will act as a trusted advisor to leadership, delivering analytics and inform decisions, shape strategy, and support long-term goals. They will combine data management and data curation to surface insights that matter and produce stories and visualizations that instigate action and impact student and university success. The director drives the overall vision of the department by implementing effective strategies for data management, data science, and data analytics to support the centralized collection, management, analysis, interpretation and reporting of data information and evidence for making data-informed decisions.

The salary is determined in accordance with the University’s compensation structure and will be commensurate with the candidates’ education and experience, within the assigned salary range for this position.

 

Responsibilities:

Data Governance

• Leads and coordinates the activities of the university Data Governance Committee to ensure coordination and comprehensive testing by power users and data owners across campus as the primary protocols to be followed by all university constituents before changes to any institutional data system can be made, including new and existing integration or sunsetting of data platforms.

• Proven understanding of the data ecosystem—from data entry points to data warehouses, to queries and reports, to dashboards, including query and report validation to crate actionable information for end users.  

• Serves as the Education Advisory Board (EAB) Edify platform implementation lead for Institutional Research that joins all institutional data via data governance initiatives and the promotion of data stewardship across the institution.

• Engage with data owners, requestors, and users to define reporting needs and analyze business findings and improve efficiencies.

Data Management

• Proficiency working in client/server environments, including extract, transform, and load (ELT) processes and editing and testing for data integrity, system security and control, and backup and recovery processes.

• Oversees the Operational Data Store (ODS) used by IRE as a composite information system for the storage of archival data that is accessed by SQL extraction queries to provide reporting information.

• Develops technologically driven enhancements for providing internal constituents with access to data and information for decision making (currently provided through the reporting tools of Tableau and Argos).

• Builds systems and processes to ensure data quality, consistency, and accuracy.

• Oversees adherence to best practices in reporting standards, coding, and data management through reviews and quality assurance processes.

• Monitors and directs the processes of data collection and validation for online data reports, interactive data dashboards, and daily operations reports.

• Troubleshoots problems, identifies solutions, and proposes improvements in efficiency pertaining to the operation of databases and reporting tools (ODS, Tableau, Argos, Excel, etc.).

• Oversees the collection of data through national and other surveys (NSSE, FSSE) as well as the centralized point for collection of data for internal and/or ad-hoc purposes using institutional tools (Qualtrics) to ensure appropriate data is collected about students throughout the entire student life cycle from first point of contact through post-graduation.

• Provide direction in the design and implementation of analytical systems and processes.

Reporting and Analytics

• Oversees the production of mandatory federal, state and TAMU System reports and other external regulator reporting requirements, including institutional and program-specific accreditation reports.

• Manages data infrastructure, designing data models that consolidate data from various sources, and collaborating with campus stakeholders to deliver actionable insights that support data-informed decision-making.

• Leads the technical aspects of institutional research projects, ensuring that solutions meet project requirements.

• Oversees data visualization by making large and/or complex data more accessible, understandable and usable by transforming, improving and integrating data.

• Compiles and analyzes data and prepares reports in relation to questions, research needs, and strategic planning and presents it in a user-friendly format for straight-forward analyses of information for use in decision-making by university constituents.

• Analyzes user/requestor/constituent requirements and uses proven methodologies to design and implement information management to meet requirements while being able to communicate complex and technical information in a clear and concise manner.

Leadership, Supervisory Responsibilities, and Delivery of Professional Development

• Provides leadership and management for the Office of Institutional Research and Integrated Data Analytics.

• Regularly assigns work to subordinates.

• Manages the selection, hiring and terminating, inventory control, purchasing, training, professional development, mentoring, and performance evaluations of unit staff.

• Coaches a range of stakeholders on the use of data to inform decisions.

• Communicates the value of data-derived information in a holistic decision-making model, considering the university mission, strategic plan, and relevant environmental factors.

• Develops strategic plans for growing and maintaining the university’s analytic and data capabilities.

• Holds all members of the Data Governance Committee to the protocols and standards established for the university’s data systems/platforms with support of the Vice Provost of Institutional Research and Effectiveness and the Provost.

Project Management and Collaboration

• Demonstrates strong leadership and organizational skills to manage multiple projects concurrently.

•  Works collaboratively and/or independently toward project completion.

• Collaborates with cross-functional teams, including academic and administrative departments, IT, and leadership.

• Acts as the keyholder/ contact/ and lead for all data sharing agreements and MOUs, including Houston GPS, the National Student Clearinghouse, etc.

• Ensures decision-makers have timely and useful information.

• Explores emerging technologies and methodologies to enhance data accessibility and expand the use of institutional data.

• Develops and manages the unit’s processes and procedures for responding to data needs in an efficient manner.

• Interacts with constituents to clarify data needs, trains them in utilizing data resources, and interpreting data results.

• Participates on research grant-writing teams to submit funding proposals to advance the mission of the department and the University.

Other duties

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Required Education and Experience:

• Master’s degree in an appropriate discipline.

• 10 years of experience with data governance to ensure accurate, reliable, and consistent institutional data.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Proficiency in data management and engineering practices, including data integration and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes as well as business intelligence tools (SQL, Logi, Tableau/Power BI, Oracle SQL, Banner, SAS, EAB Edify).

• Expertise in creating interactive dashboards and data visualizations using tools like Power BI, Tableau, etc.

• Experience with higher education data systems and key performance indicators.

• Knowledge of the operations and responsibilities of an Institutional Research/Data Analytics office, the related trends and issues, and accepted practices.

• Advanced knowledge of statistical software.

• Experience with data governance protocols within a large organization integrating and utilizing multiple data sources.

• Advanced knowledge and skills in data management, data science, and data analytics.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Excellent interpersonal and communications skills.

• Ability to extract and manipulate data and produce quality reports.

• Ability to meet deadlines; ability to exercise good judgement.

• Ability to honor professional ethics and protect the confidentiality of information.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Terminal degree

• Experience in a higher education Institutional Research Office.

All positions are security-sensitive. Applicants are subject to a criminal history investigation, and employment is contingent upon the institution’s verification of credentials and/or other information required by the institution’s procedures, including the completion of the criminal history check.

Equal Opportunity/Veterans/Disability Employer.