Senior Student Associate

The University of Texas at Austin•Austin, UT

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The Global Initiatives and Alumni Relations (GIAR) unit advances the university's global engagement strategy by developing institutional partnerships, engaging alumni worldwide, supporting faculty international activities, investing philanthropically in global initiatives, and administering scholarship opportunities for education abroad and international students. The Global Strategies student will support a university-wide global mapping initiative designed to identify, categorize, and document international activities across campus while also assisting with inbound and outbound visiting delegations. The position will involve collecting and organizing data for an interactive map on the Texas Global website, which serves as UT Austin's central global engagement portal. Projects may also include mapping and analyzing the geographic distribution of UT alumni at current and prospective institutional partner organizations. A significant component of this role will involve data entry and management within a custom database system (FileMaker Pro). Through this work, the student will develop experience in data collection, analysis, and reporting while gaining valuable insight into international higher education and global university engagement. The Global Strategies student will also provide support for a variety of international engagement activities, including hosting inbound delegations, welcoming international visitors to campus, and assisting with preparations for university leadership travel abroad. Responsibilities may include conducting research, preparing briefing materials, serving as a campus guide for visitors, coordinating logistical details, and supporting special events, including setup and breakdown activities. Through these experiences, the student will gain practical skills in event planning, project coordination, logistics, and stakeholder engagement within an international higher education environment.

Requirements

Current graduate student at UT Austin (enrolled in a minimum of 9 credit hours during the fall and spring semester, and available to work between 20 hours per week during standard work week hours (Monday – Friday, 8 am – 5 pm).
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Team player that is self-directed with highly developed communication skills.
Extensive planning and organization skills with a keen eye for detail.
Ability to work independently and discern when to request guidance.
Critical thinker with a willingness to research and propose creative solutions.
Quick learner with a curiosity for identifying and researching additional lines of inquiry.

Nice To Haves

Experience in organizing data and supporting documentation in a clear and intuitive manner.
Experience working across cultures and within various levels of an organization.

Responsibilities

Conduct a comprehensive data analysis of existing international activities within the University’s colleges, schools and units (CSUs).
Collect data from multiple sources, university offices, and individual faculty webpages.
Collect, analyze, and make further inquiry of existing data, as needed, to document activities and ensure accuracy of the information being recorded.
Clean and standardize data to record activities in the database.
Keep detailed documentation and meticulously organized records of findings.
Optimize data for visualization.
Provide routine reports outlining the progress of data collection across CSUs.
Format findings for ease of retrieval and “searchability”, propose solutions to challenges encountered in identifying and recording data.
Assist in the coordination of inbound or outbound delegations, such as conducting research, preparing reports, and escorting visitors to meetings on campus.
Other duties as assigned.