Reporting to the AVP for Financial Aid/ Veterans Affairs/Dover AFB, this position will create a university scholarship office to administer the existing institutional, federal, and state funded scholarship programs as well as growing centrally administered external scholarships. As a key member of the OFA&S senior leadership team, the Associate Director directs the daily operations of OFA&S administered university scholarship programs that disburse funds from endowments and current use gift accounts to students who meet the specific donor preferences of each scholarship. Manage the Federal Work Study Program.

The following are the functions essential to performing this job.

1. Assist with strategic and operational planning, leadership, oversight and implementation of new and existing university scholarships and fellowships.

2. Manage the Federal Work Study Program

3. Manages University scholarship programs and awards; including incorporating scholarship awards into financial aid packages to spend budgeted amounts, revising awards for students who withdraw, change enrollment, or otherwise become ineligible, and revising institutional awards based on university internal/external scholarship policy.

4. Manages all aspects of Campus Logic Scholarship Universe system, including implementation and functional analysis of the system as well as implementation of current and new scholarships, testing, evaluation, resolving issues, and system changes/updates

5.Monitors disbursement of scholarship awards to student billing accounts as well as reconciles funds with appropriate departments at the end of each payment period and the end of the academic year.

6. Maintains appropriate records of transactions to support compliance and reporting.

7. Works with the Office of Finance to set up Banner fund codes to charge scholarship awards to appropriate cost centers to spend budgeted amounts.

8. Works with the OFA&S Director of Finance and Restricted Funding to respond to internal and external requests for information, reporting, and budget consultation, as well as to quarterly and monthly requests for information on variances, deficits, and other budgeting issues as needed.

9. Reconcile annual state funded scholarship spending, to include the funding of General Scholarships, Mishoe Scholarship, etc.

10. Support recipients of university scholarships and their parents, and assists in recruiting and retaining a talented and diverse study body.

11. Works with various offices and other on-campus partners to define, develop, and market scholarship opportunities for prospective and continuing students.

12. Creating, implementing, and evaluating scholarship policies and procedures and serves as an active and engaged member of OFA&SA and SEM&SA.

13. Supervises a team of financial aid counselors.

14. Supports the negotiation of scholarship gifts by reviewing draft gift agreements and providing feedback on how these gifts would be administered and if there would be recipients to meet the proposed recipient selection preferences.

15. Primary liaison with Institutional Advancement (IA) in support of university fundraising, scholarship administration and donor stewardship, and will be the primary point person for the Division of Strategic Enrollment Management & Student Affairs (SEM&SA) on scholarship reporting to IA, SEM&SA and Finance.

16. Exercise independent judgment in interpreting and applying policies and procedures and develop solutions to difficult situations where precedent may not exist.

NON-ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE JOB:

1. May serve on various university committees and teams within the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships, as well with other offices across campus, on an as needed basis.

2. Designs, develops, implements, and participates (as needed) in outreach activities with an emphasis on Scholarship advising and services to current and prospective students to include high school college nights, college fairs, admissions open houses, admitted freshman days, Welcome Week, and other outreach programs targeted at informing current and prospective students of financial aid availability and application processes.

3. Performs other duties as assigned.

Other Functions

Individuals in this job may be assigned one or more of the following tasks on a rotating or as-needed basis.

1. On an occasional basis, travel to an off-campus meeting site to attend institutional workshops

2. Provide support to other strategic enrollment departments, as needed.

3. Handle discrepancy resolutions of awards.

4. Required to work some evenings and weekends.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

The individual in this job must possess these skills and abilities or be able to explain and demonstrate that they can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without reasonable accommodation, using some other combination of skills and abilities.

1. Working knowledge of relational database design, optimization, and troubleshooting

2. Advanced skills in the use of MS Access and MS Excel.

3. Experience in database administration / data warehousing within an organization.

4. Ability to convert non-technical data requests into programming code, and ability to communicate and explain difficult technical terms.

5. Technical writing skills.

1. Education: Master’s degree in a related field; or Bachelor’s degree in a related field plus demonstrated, directly related work experiences that equates to an advanced degree.

2. Successful experience: Experience in interpreting federal and state financial aid rules and regulations. Experience in managing various scholarship programs in a higher education environment. Demonstrated experience in dealing with difficult situations and diffusing customer conflict. People management and supervisory experience. Preferred experience with Ellucian’s Banner Financial Aid system and Campus Logic.

3. Other: Professional demeanor and ability to work effectively with various constituencies including potential/incoming students and their families, current students and their families, faculty, administrators, and the public.

The criteria for evaluation in this position include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Excellent verbal and written communication skills are required; ability to discuss aid/full pay concerns with students

2. Demonstrate knowledge of the DSU Fundamentals.

3. Ability to troubleshoot common hardware and software problems.

4. Demonstrate ability to resolve problems timely and effectively.

Note: The University reserves the right to change or reassign job duties as provided in policy and negotiated agreements.