Director of Research for Academics and Policy

NCAA • Indianapolis, IN

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Research for Academics and Policy will develop and oversee research projects on the academic experiences of NCAA student-athletes and oversee surveys of the membership that inform legislation and education efforts. The director will take the lead in research design, analyses and serve as the primary communicator of findings to varied audiences. The Director of Research for Academics and Policy works directly with NCAA members, staff and other relevant parties to apply research insights to inform policymaking.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in psychology, education, statistics, analytics or related field, or master’s degree with significant research experience.
• Advanced skills in quantitative research design, descriptive and inferential statistics, statistical software programming (e.g., R, SPSS, STATA), database creation and management, and production of graphical displays.
• At least 5 years of experience in social science, educational or related policy research.
• Experience working with large research databases.
• Familiarity with current issues in U.S. higher education.
• Knowledge of the NCAA, its membership structure and current academic policy issues that can be informed through research.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively to audiences with varied interests and technical backgrounds.
• Experience conveying research findings to the public, lawmakers and media.
• Demonstrated history of productivity as a researcher.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Willingness to take on a wide variety of tasks and responsibilities.
• Ability to work well as a team member.

Nice To Haves

• Doctoral degree preferred.
• Familiarity with higher education enrollment data (e.g., NSC data, IPEDS data, institutional-level enrollment and persistence data) strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Direct research projects related to student-athlete academic performance, including research analysis of NCAA and national data, disseminating results, and informing policy on topics such as initial eligibility standards, progress-toward-degree standards, prediction of college academic success, academic impacts of transferring, successful transfer from two-year colleges, postgraduate retention and persistence, measurement of team-level and school-level academic success, impact of NCAA policies on student-athlete academic success, methods for detecting and reducing academic risk, and benchmarking student-athlete academic trends.
• Manage design, distribution, analyses and reporting of NCAA membership surveys designed to gather feedback about existing or proposed legislation and educational efforts.
• Maintain a strong working knowledge of other NCAA research topics that can inform other areas of research or policy discussions.
• Cultivate personal and staff expertise in important topics in higher education policy that have relevance to NCAA policymakers.
• Serve as key research connection and public presenter of research findings to NCAA governance bodies, executive staff members and the membership in the area of academic performance.
• Support the Managing Director of Research to develop guidelines to facilitate the development of informed requests from governance committees and other areas of the national office.
• Develop and enhance personal research skills as needed through independent study, collaboration with other staff and engagement with external scholars in the field.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director