Executive Assistant to the President

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY•Jefferson City, MO

6d•$55,000 - $60,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Executive Assistant to the University President is a highly visible role that requires interaction with students, faculty, staff, curators, senior administrators, alumni, executives, public and private officials, community partners, the media, and donors. They provide expansive support to the President and members of the Leadership Team. The Executive Assistant maintains strict confidentiality and helps the President stay focused on institutional priorities. The Executive Assistant works independently to manage complex and sensitive situations that possess the potential to have major impact on the university. They exercise good judgment in a range of circumstances, with strong written and verbal communication, administrative, organizational skills, and maintain a realistic balance among multiple priorities working effectively under pressure. The Executive Assistant to the President relieves the President of operational and administrative details and performs varied, highly responsible, complex, and non-supervised administrative and office management functions. They must possess a thorough knowledge of university policies, procedures, and operations, and an understanding of the University's role within the community. The Executive Assistant to the President exercises initiative and independent judgment in managing the President's schedule and the office's activities, events, budgets, and projects. The Executive Assistant to the President uses discretion in the dissemination of information to faculty, students, staff, and the various publics served by the University and coordinates activities with several major subordinate administrative units of the University.

Requirements

Requires a bachelor's degree and five to ten years of professional experience in an administrative setting with three to five years supporting upper-level executives.
Maintain an extremely high level of integrity and discretion in handling confidential interactions, documents, and information.
Comfortable working in a fast-paced executive environment demonstrating a high degree of professionalism in dealing with diverse groups of people, including board members, senior executives, donors, elected officials, and community and governance group leaders.
Excellent verbal, written, and communication skills are required, i.e., the ability to communicate effectively verbally and through written correspondence as well as in communicating with individuals in one-on-one situations.
Exceptional organizational skills and impeccable attention to detail.
Expert proficiency with Microsoft Office and desktop publishing software; ability to design and edit graphic presentations and materials.
Ability to be responsive to emails, texts, and phone calls with regular contact outside normal business hours.
Ability to complete a high volume of tasks and projects with little or no guidance.
Ability to make appropriate, informed decisions regarding priorities, resources, and issues.
Ability to switch gears/direction at a moment's notice and react with appropriate levels of urgency to situations and events.

Nice To Haves

Experience in maintaining, monitoring, and reconciling financial records and accounts is preferred.

Responsibilities

Provides sophisticated calendar management to the Office of the President, prioritizing inquiries and requests while troubleshooting conflicts. Exercises independent judgement to ensure smooth day-to-day logistics and engagement. Works closely with the president to keep him/her well informed and prepared for upcoming appearances, meetings, speaking engagements, and activities. Maximizes the president's time to meet personal, board, and institutional goals. Maintains a keen eye for details regarding travel, meeting location(s), agenda, participants, attire, set up, logistics, and supporting documents/materials is essential.
Serves as the key front-facing representative of the Office of the President and promotes a positive image of the University by greeting and receiving visitors to the President's office, responding to inquiries from University publics (e.g., students, parents, faculty, staff, legislators, alumni, the media, and public and private officials), providing authoritative information regarding University policies or decisions, referring inquiries or problems to the appropriate office or person, resolving problems, and following up to determine the inquirer's satisfaction with the response. providing for smooth communication and engagement between the university president and internal and external constituents. This position serves as the primary gatekeeper for visitors, phone calls, and documents arriving in the president's office. Provide hospitality to all guests while maintaining credibility, trust and support among key internal and external constituents.
Provides proactive email management. Maintains consistent, ongoing scrutiny and maintenance of the president's university email account. Exercises independent judgement in responding to, deleting, forwarding, reassigning, sharing, and following up on issues raised via email. Keeps the president up to date on emails that require his/her immediate personal attention. Maintains an archival system of key emails to ensure future availability upon request.
Coordinates the flow of incoming communications and outgoing communications by receiving, routing, and/or responding to incoming communications and determining the appropriate office, department, or agency for outgoing communications.
Serves as liaison between the President and other University administrators, members of the Board of Curators, public and private officials, various boards, faculty, staff, students, and the various publics served by the University by communicating and/or interpreting policy, decisions, and documents issued by the University, gathering information and providing information to the President, and representing the President's Office on select University and civic committees.
Safeguards the confidentiality of university administration by exercising discretion in communicating information to faculty, students, staff and the various publics served by the University and in handling administrative records, files, and similar confidential items.
Provides high-level administrative support, assisting with special projects, exercising independent judgement on how to proceed to accomplish outcomes; manage sensitive matters and documents with a high level of confidentiality and discretion; design and produce complex documents, reports, and presentations; collect and prepare information for meetings, compose and prepare correspondence; answer the main phone line and convey messages as appropriate; maintain office supplies and gifts; keep contact lists current and readily available; make travel arrangements; and complete expense and mileage reports.
Assists the President by reviewing correspondence and documents prepared by other offices for the president's signature.
Assists with coordinating and facilitating the success of events hosted by the President's office by scheduling events with appropriate offices and agencies, advising/contacting participants or invited guests, preparing agendas and programs, arranging for audiovisual and associated support equipment, using independent judgment regarding event alternatives, modifications, or last-minute changes, and coordinating or providing support during the events.
Performs office management responsibilities by assuring the proper accountability of university property and equipment assigned to the office, providing office personnel with necessary supplies and equipment, and maintaining office equipment in working condition.
Works independently with limited supervision by gathering and organizing required information, maintaining required records, evaluating various approaches to completing projects, developing tools and utilizing available resources to achieve desired outcomes, exercising judgement to make decisions, and assuring effective communication with stakeholders.
Facilitates the work of the Office of the President by keeping contact lists updated for large mailings, compiling an annual university wide memberships report, distributing and keeping accurate records of complementary tickets for various events, and ordering and distributing Presidential parking passes to emeriti and selected individuals.
Facilitates efficient and cost-effective official travel for the President and other official visitors by making travel arrangements and preparing associated approval forms and expense reports for travelers.
Prepares correspondence for distribution or approval and signature, checking the documents for completeness and accuracy.
Assists with development and management of the budgets under control of the President's Office by maintaining budget records, reconciling and verifying vouchers and receipts for accuracy, producing financial reports and summaries, approving expenditures, completing budget transfers, and verifying and approving all international travel for the University.
Performs records management of a complex filing system by overseeing the filing system, creating files and records as necessary using judgment and knowledge of office requirements, updating files and records, determining retention and purging schedules, and retrieving files and documents as needed.
Remains competent and current through self-directed professional reading, developing professional relationships with colleagues, attending professional development seminars, and attending training and/or courses as required by the President.
Contributes to the overall success of the University by performing other essential duties and responsibilities as assigned.