Operations Manager

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week:
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: 69,000 - 74,000

Position Summary

The Columbia University School of General Studies (GS) is the finest liberal arts college in the United States dedicated to making Ivy League education accessible to nontraditional students. GS was founded in 1947 on the mission of expanding access to elite higher education, and it remains the most diverse college in the Ivy League, with many transfer, first-generation, and international students. GS students are fully integrated with Columbia's broader undergraduate population and are taught by Columbia's celebrated faculty.

The Operations Manager facilitates outstanding student service and operational excellence in the area of academic advising and educational financing by providing responsive frontline support and coordinating key operational and technical activities required to ensure accurate and efficient processing of student academic and financial information.

The incumbent will ensure the execution of all tasks necessary for the effective delivery of academic advisors and educational financing services while providing excellent customer service to both students and staff. Through collaboration with both the director and the broader operations and information systems team, the incumbent will identify, lead and execute projects that drive continuous improvement and operational excellence across the entire student service portfolio.

Responsibilities

Dean of Students (DOS) Oversight and Support:

• Serves as a primary overseer of the DOS office space, ensuring efficient use, organization, and readiness for daily operations.
• Creates and updates coverage schedule for student facing spaces.
• Ensures completion of operational tasks by front desk team members, and redistributes tasks as necessary.
• Oversees coding and academic checks for student awards and honors including Dean's List and Honor Society.
• Administers Make-up and deferred exams and assignments for students.
• Manages Academic Action project, including facilitating academic review, appeals, coding, and notifications.

Educational Financing Support:

• Assists with monitoring and coding of financial documents, ensuring submitted financial aid applications are complete, including oversight and administration of the IDOC portal. Performs outreach to students with incomplete or conflicting data.
• Creates and maintains reports and procedures within Salesforce, Slate, Powerfaids, and related systems to manage critical data exchanges for the efficient execution of financial aid processes.
• Assists with packaging and releasing of financial awards.
• Oversees Satisfactory Academic Progress outreach and related data tracking.
• Assists with grant substitutions for named scholarship process.

Customer Service:

• Coordinates with the academic advising and educational financing teams to facilitate key correspondence with students including award notifications and advisor and counselor assignments.
• Coordinates and facilitates all aspects of financial aid informational sessions and academic planning sessions both virtual and in-person modalities.
• Packages institutional aid for international students.
• Answers inquiries from prospective and current students regarding, but not limited to, advisor and counselor assignments, registration appointments, financial aid process and campus resources.
• Assists the Executive Director of Operations with special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

Documentation:

• Creates and maintains excellent documentation in support of training and proper execution of internal policies and procedures. Meticulously updates project documentation, project management information systems as well as student database applications.

Project Management:

• Serves as a project manager and project team member aimed at implementing technology and policy to improve processes and student operations. Effectively manage stakeholders to ensure project deliverables align with expectations and project goals are achieved in a timely fashion.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree and/or equivalent plus a minimum of two years of related experience is required. Excellent interpersonal, organizational and communication skills required.

Preferred Qualifications

Demonstrated ability to learn, understand, and utilize various technological applications. Excellent customer service, interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills required. Experience with project management preferred. Ability to handle a variety of simultaneous activities, attention to detail and ability to follow through a must. Basic knowledge of Salesforce or similar CRMs, as well as familiarity with project management systems like Asana are a plus. Experience using PowerFaids, Stellic and Slate is highly desirable.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.