Administrative and Faculty Support

Strategic Projects Coordinator

The Friedman School's strategic projects coordinator is Susan Williams.

Susan is working on-campus Monday/Thursday and remotely Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday.

Reporting directly to the Executive Administrative Dean (EAD) and indirectly to the Director of Business Operations (DBO), the 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 event and initiative coordination, administrative support, and business operations support. 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.

Letitia is working on-campus Monday through Thursday and remotely on Friday. Orsolya is working on-campus Monday/Tuesday/Thursday and remotely Wednesday/Friday.

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.