Academic Chair

Specific Accountabilities 1. Academic Leadership and Administration Promotes and ensures teaching excellence to provide a successful learning experience for students. Provide academic leadership to the programs through curriculum development and accreditation cycles with a focus on excellence in service, safety and program delivery. Manage academic activity for the program areas, including curriculum development and delivery, instructional methods and academic standards, ensuring commonality of program standards and outcomes. Ensure the quality of academic offerings by monitoring and implementing sound academic policies and procedures. Champion and model diversity to support an inclusive and supportive environment for all students and staff. This will include strategies and programs to support Indigenous student success and achievement, international and newcomer to Canada programs, disability and learner success models and other like programs or supports. Contribute to and coordinate the accreditation process for academic programs by external organizations as required. Prepare program areas for program accreditation and review involving relevant internal and external stakeholder groups, including each program’s alignment to the academic model. Coordinate the Program Advisory Committee (PAC) process, including the recruitment of new members and calling and organizing annual PAC meetings, and maintaining contact with PAC members between annual meetings. Establish protocols for and ensure completion of Prior Learning Assessment Reviews. Manage administrative processes for ensuring quality in programs and alignment to Saskatchewan Polytechnic policies, procedures and standards. Oversee the quality assurance process for brokered programs. Manage the applicable accreditation processes for programs. Coordinate standardization of forms, documents, and procedures. Administer applied research project for program area(s). In consultation with the associate dean, give oversight to the quality assurance process of Continuing Education/Extension offerings, including instructor hiring, onboarding, training, and coaching, and handling student issues with consistency and fairness. 2. Resource Allocation Manage resource allocation for assigned programs. Contribute to preliminary aspects of the budget development process, including identification of initial operating and capital requirements, as well as ongoing approval of expenditures in accordance with defined management authorities. Monitor the financial performance and recommend budget adjustments for applicable program areas. Recommend innovative solutions to resource challenges using internal and external resources. Apply for and manage Integrated Development Funds. Coordinate and rationalize the use of resources among programs, including issues related to the process for securing capital, furniture, and computer assets for programs. Regularly monitor program budgets through the FAST system and provide reports to program heads regarding spending variances and other budget issues. 3. People Management Manage human resources of program areas, in consultation with program heads where appropriate, through the employee life cycle, reflecting the values of Saskatchewan Polytechnic. Foster an organizational environment that encourages personal productivity, job satisfaction and the professional growth of faculty and employees in the program areas, including group and personal development plans. Foster a culture of organizational safety and security. Provide full oversight and execution of the annual Faculty Assessment Process, including the provision of instruction, forms, and timelines, and meeting with direct reports to conduct the process. Maintain a high level of staff performance through effective use of human resources practices and procedures, including recruitment, selection, orientation, training, probationary reviews, motivating and assessing program faculty and employees. Establish clear performance standards and goals for direct reports and hold them accountable for meeting standards and goals. Address people management issues with direct reports, including independent authority to discipline, dismiss and/or terminate where appropriate, applied in a timely manner while ensuring compliance with the collective agreement and Saskatchewan Polytechnic policies. Act as a first point of contact to interpret, administer and manage within respective collective bargaining agreements and ensure employee standards are applied appropriately. Review draft work performed by program heads in the areas of scheduling, workload, program activity initiatives and instructional hours of faculty to ensure consistency across the Faculty. Promote communication between all organizational levels. Ensure a positive, diverse and inclusive work and learning environment. Periodically, at a frequency approved by the dean and associate dean, meet individually with each direct report for communication and coaching. 4. Student Affairs Manage the student experience through the student life cycle. Collaboratively with program heads, develop and execute student recruitment strategies that promote academic programs and services to potential students. Develop and execute student enrolment (SEM) and orientation strategies to ensure consistent onboarding experiences. Research and recommend student success strategies in consultation with Student Development staffing. Develop and execute strategies to ensure full intakes of students into programs, monitor attrition, and ensure implementation of student success and enrolment management measures. Ensure that concerns regarding student performance and conduct are managed consistently across the program areas and are appropriately addressed, including all issues related to alleged academic and non-academic misconduct. Manage processes for appeals and student financial issues. Engage all stakeholders (including program heads and associate dean) in a review of appropriate procedures for processing domestic and international transfer credits. 5. Relationship Management Internal Represent the Faculty/program on internal committees and teams as assigned by the associate dean or ensure appropriate representation amongst program membership. Build and maintain relationships across both academic and administrative divisions, and with Saskatchewan Polytechnic students, with specific attention to the students and staff of the programs. External Develop and maintain relationships with external agencies, educational and government organizations, colleges and universities as related to programming issues and agreements and to remain current with their priorities and plans. Represent the program, Faculty and Saskatchewan Polytechnic at relevant business, industry, community and sector functions as required. 6. Strategic Planning Manages the planning and implementation of strategic initiatives within the programs, coordinating with the wider strategic planning in the Faculty and Saskatchewan Polytechnic. Forecast future trends and year-end results and communicate as required to Senior Management. Take action on these trends in conjunction with industry partners, external stakeholders and internal resources. Recommend strategies to ensure strategic planning is aligned to needs of stakeholders and program areas. Manage priorities and strategic initiatives within program areas. Contribute to the development of grant and other funding proposals. Contribute to establishing goals for program areas. Anticipate human resource needs for achieving strategic goals (meeting future trends). #J-18808-Ljbffr