Using the tabs below, you may view the roles and responsibilities of the Friedman School's administrative and faculty support staff.
Faculty Coordinators
The Friedman School has two faculty coordinators: Ellen-Marie Bransfield and Lisa Cho.
Faculty coordinators at the Friedman School perform a wide range of administrative duties that support teaching, research, advising, travel, and related activities. Each coordinator supports a portfolio of approximately 5-15 Friedman school primary unmodified faculty members. The faculty coordinators, faculty, and the Director of Business Operations, Courtney King, work together to find a balanced workload for the coordinators.
Current faculty coordinator portfolios
Friedman School faculty members not included in the faculty coordinators' portfolios may request ad hoc support as a need arises by contacting Courtney, who will work with the coordinators to determine whether there is capacity in their workloads at the time to absorb the additional support need.
Types of Support Available:
Below are examples of the types of support faculty coordinators can provide. The list is intended to spur conversation between a faculty member and coordinator about the most effective ways the coordinator can help the faculty member considering the other research- or program-focused staff and teaching assistant(s) already supporting the faculty member. Please contact Courtney King with questions.
Point of Contact General Financial Courses Research Divisions/Programs Events Student Advising Hiring
Point of Contact
- Acting as a central source of information and problem solving for faculty
- Providing guidance and explanation of policies and procedures to faculty
- Coordinating with contacts across the school and university
- Communicating with external collaborators and points of contact
- Receiving and directing visitors
General
- Drafting, producing, proofreading, formatting, and/or editing reports, documents, presentations, tables, and/or spreadsheets
- Updating CVs, bios, and bibliographies
- Updating faculty web profiles
- Updating Friedman School-related websites
- Coordinating meetings and related logistics and travel arrangements
- Creating and distributing surveys, compiling and analyzing results
- Initiating and responding to doodle polls and requests for availability
- Preparing and distributing agenda
- Attending meetings, taking and distributing minutes
- Following up on action items
- Developing and maintaining filing systems and records
- Assisting with computer orders and software
- Ordering research specific supplies
- Assisting with preparing annual faculty review forms
- Processing incoming and outgoing mail
Financial
- Processing transactions and reimbursements supported by program or personal discretionary funds
- Processing other payments and reimbursements
- Reconciling travel card and purchasing card transactions
- Acting as liaison between faculty and sponsored research administration staff for transactional questions
- Tracking expenses
- Preparing basic projections and/or budgets
- Assisting with preparation of grant proposals
Divisions/Programs
- Attending division faculty meetings, taking and distributing minutes, following up on action items, preparing agenda
- Tracking information
- Coordinating meetings and lunches
- Updating division or program webpages on the Friedman School site in coordination with the Friedman School communications team
Events
- Supporting special events, including workshops, conferences, seminars, and colloquia
- Reserving rooms
- Ordering catering
- Managing other logistics
- Distributing publicity materials
- Sending notifications and reminders
- Tracking responses
- Assisting speakers with preparation of materials
- Acting as liaison to guests prior to event
- Receiving and directing guests
Hiring
- Facilitating the hiring of research staff, students, temps, and postdoctoral scholars:
- Staff: Assisting with recruiting processes (until offer stage; faculty coordinators are not privy to staff salary details) including coordinating with HR, screening applications, arranging interviews, communicating on behalf of faculty member
- Students and temps: Advertising, arranging interviews, preparing offer letters, facilitating appointment processing with finance office, facilitating appointment extensions and related letters
- Postdocs: Advertising, arranging interviews, preparing offer letters, facilitating appointment processing with TSS, coordinating with Office of Faculty Affairs
- Facilitating new employee onboarding
- Acting as liaison to International Center for visa applications
Strategic Projects Coordinator
The Friedman School's senior strategic projects coordinator is Susan Williams.
Susan is working on-campus Monday and remotely Tuesday through Friday.
Reporting directly to the Director of Business Operations (DBO) and indirectly to the Executive Administrative Dean (EAD), the Senior Strategic Projects Coordinator provides high-level, complex, and varied administrative and program support to the EAD and independently manages special projects and assignments. The coordinator’s responsibilities span special projects coordination, administrative support, and business operations coordination. The coordinator participates as part of the school’s broader administrative support team, offering and receiving back-up support as needed.
Special Projects and Special Events
- Coordinates special projects and initiatives led by the EAD, including staffing the Administrative Cabinet meetings and coordinating activities related to strategic plan-related initiatives and school performance indicator tracking needs lead by the EAD.
- Coordinates and staffs special meetings and events, working with school leadership and various contacts across the school and university, as well as external stakeholders.
- Conducts independent research in support of special projects.
Executive Administrative Support
- Drafts and edits correspondence; creates complex documents, reports, and presentations; prepares briefing materials; develops and organizes agendas.
- Engages in research, analysis, and/or preparation of data, issues, or other needs for the EAD.
- Schedules meetings and maintains the EAD’s calendar.
- Tracks status of ongoing matters and follows up as required.
- Addresses questions and needs on behalf of the EAD as appropriate.
- Provides administrative support to the DBO.
- Participates in team meetings, trainings, and activities for staff. Provides back-up support for other staff as needed.
Business Operations Coordination
- Serves as a liaison to Facilities, TTS, TSS, Educational Media, and other central offices.
- Coordinates affiliate account creation, extension, and tracking.
- Updates elists, building access lists, occupancy lists, and computer inventory.
- Coordinates operational onboarding/offboarding needs for new and departing staff.
- Supervises part-time worker assigned to support the below tasks and/or coordinates these tasks directly:
- Reserves conference rooms for faculty, staff, and students.
- Maintains kitchens, lounges, conference rooms and classrooms, print/copy facilities, supply areas, mailboxes, signs/directories, and other spaces.
- Addresses miscellaneous inquiries and directs to other contacts as relevant.
Executive Administrative Coordinators
Letitia Johnson and Orsolya Szabo are the school's Executive Administrative Coordinators.
As the Executive Administrative Coordinator for the Dean’s Office, Letitia provides high-level, complex, and varied administrative support to Dean Christina Economos and independently manages special assignments. The coordinator serves as the liaison between the Dean’s office and other offices and constituencies of the university. The coordinator anticipates the needs of the Dean to ensure optimal workflow and scheduling, exercising sound independent judgment in bringing information and issues to the direct attention of the Dean and providing direct assistance or referring matters to others as appropriate.
The Executive Administrative Coordinator’s responsibilities include drafting and editing correspondence; creating complex documents, reports, and presentations; preparing briefing materials; developing and organizing agendas; managing a complex calendar, schedules, travel arrangements and related reimbursements and expense reconciliation; addressing questions and needs on behalf of the Dean as appropriate; supporting, organizing, and staffing special meetings and events; managing special projects; and other relevant activities. The coordinator participates as part of the school’s broader administrative support team, offering and receiving back-up support as needed. The coordinator regularly works with confidential and/or sensitive information and exercises discretion concerning that information.
Administrative Professional Support
- Acts as the first administrative point of contact for the Dean
- Coordinates daily office operations including arranging for and greeting visitors, answering phone, responding to inquiries, triaging email and mail
- Schedules meetings and maintains the Dean's complex calendar
- Prioritizes calls and correspondence and briefs all necessary parties on items needing immediate and/or personal attention
- Makes travel arrangements and prepares related reference documents for the Dean
- Composes correspondence, reports, meeting notes and educational material
Special Events and Special Projects
- Coordinates and oversees events sponsored by the Dean's office
- Works with the Dean to outline event and coordinate invitations, catering and facilities for events including VIP visits, Town Hall meetings, recognition receptions, and events sponsored by the President's or Provost's office that require support or collaboration
- Manages a variety of other projects as requested by the Dean
General, Administrative & Other
- Reconciles travel expenses and reimbursements in a timely manner
- Attends, conducts and reports on meetings
- Oversees the Deans’ suite supplies, kitchen, and overall physical state
Orsolya will continue to provide administrative support to Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian in his role as Senior Advisor to the Provost and Dean of Policy during the FY23 fiscal.
Academic and Faculty Affairs Administrative Coordinator
Emma Groves Baldacci is the Friedman School's Academic and Faculty Affairs Administrative Coordinator.
Emma is working primarily remotely with periodic and on-demand on-campus visits.
The OAFA administrative coordinator, under the supervision of the OAFA Officer, is responsible for execution of duties in the following areas: OAFA operations, faculty recruitment, appointment and promotion, faculty development, support of faculty governance, management of educational programs, educational program assessment, and other duties. The role coordinates faculty recruitment, appointment, and promotions, and the planning, delivery, and assessment of academic programs. The coordinator implements policies and procedures for faculty governance. They contribute to design and implementation of policies and systems to ensure that curricular activities meet academic and school goals, including ongoing review of curricular elements and periodic school-wide review of the curriculum. The coordinator enables the professional development of faculty members in the areas of research, teaching and advising through assistance with annual evaluation, establishing and executing retreats, workshops, seminars, orientation sessions and other efforts, promoting opportunities for research applications and collaborations, and creating and promoting collections of resources. The coordinator also supports the work of faculty committees.
OAFA Operations
- Participate in essential elements of OAFA workflow to achieve the Friedman School’s strategic goals as well as the goals of the Academic Dean and School leadership.
- Plan and implement OAFA initiatives, programs and events.
- Support the administrative needs of the Academic Dean, including
- Calendar management
- Scheduling, planning, and execution of meetings and events.
- Agenda setting for meetings, retreats, and events.
- Learn and implement new office technologies to improve operations.
- Manage office supplies.
- Manage leadership committees, including scheduling, agenda setting, recording of meeting minutes or proceedings, and ensuring appropriate follow-up for tasks arising from meetings.
- Manage OAFA budgets and Academic Dean’s discretionary funds, including monitoring, reconciling expenses, processing reimbursements, and preparing reports.
- Oversee divisional discretionary fund processes, including providing guidance regarding allow expenses to faculty support coordinators, reconciling budgets, and providing periodic and final reports.
- Contribute to and/or manage collection of data relating to
- Faculty appointment, performance indicators, and awards/honors.
- Academic indicators at the School and academic program levels.
- Student outcomes.
- Alumni employment.
Faculty Appointment Management
- Assist with data collection and prepare reports regarding faculty recruitment, appointment, reappointment, promotion, tenure, leaves, and sabbaticals.
- Maintain a schedule for faculty reappointments and tenure.
- Implement recruitment strategies to promote a diverse faculty.
- Provide staff support for faculty recruitment, appointment, and promotion, including
- Post open positions
- Manage search and other committees, including schedule, record keeping, collection and distribution for committee review, generation of search reports consistent with School and University standards.
- Facilitate communication between search or ad hoc committees with the School’s Appointment, Tenure and Promotion Committee and School leadership.
- Generate and track appointment letters.
- Plan and implement new faculty onboarding.
- Act as a resource for the faculty and School leadership regarding faculty appointments, leaves and separations.
Faculty Development
- Act as a resource for faculty regarding faculty procedures, responsibilities, and services.
- Assist with assessment of needs for faculty development
- Enable excellence in research, teaching and advising by
- Organizing, scheduling and implementing retreats, workshops, seminars and other activities.
- Collecting, organizing and disseminating resources for
- Teaching and mentoring.
- Grant-writing, publishing, and other scholarly activities of the faculty.
- Opportunities for grant funding and research collaboration.
- Assist with quality assessment of professional development programming.
- Manage annual evaluation of faculty, including preparation of review templates, encouraging completion by faculty, and tracking faculty responses.
Faculty Governance
- Contribute to revisions and updates to the Friedman School Faculty Handbook and other Friedman School documents.
- Enable the work of faculty committees, including provision of staff support for scheduling, agenda setting, record keeping, and follow up based committee decisions.
- Organize faculty meetings and retreats, contribute to agenda setting, and provide staff support and recording of minutes.
Management of Educational Programs
- Collect and disseminate resources for best practices teaching, mentoring and learning to assure the effective planning and delivery of a high-quality curriculum.
- Contribute to the planning and execution of ongoing and new curricular and co-curricular initiatives.
- Manage tracking and requests for payment of adjunct teaching faculty and teaching assistants.
- Participate in designing and creating advising materials for students, staff and advisors.
- Manage the doctoral program in collaboration with the Office of Student Affairs
- Act as the primary point of contact related to PhD student milestones and related coordination.
- Coordinate qualify exam processes with students and faculty committees.
- Gather information such as dissertation titles and abstracts.
- Work with the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) to maintain doctoral student databases and reports
- Act as a resource for faculty and students regarding the academic Integrity process at the School.
Educational Program Assessment
- With the Academic Dean and OAFA Manager, conduct systematic assessment of degrees, the curriculum and its elements, academic programs, and student outcomes, including
- Maintain schedules of assessment activities.
- Facilitate assessment by organizing timelines.
- Attend meetings and maintain records.
- Collect data.
- Prepare reports.
- Manage the distribution of School-administered surveys and aggregate survey results.
- Collaborate with other School and University offices to obtain and provide necessary data.