Western Washington University, with over 15,000 students in seven colleges and the graduate school, is nationally recognized for its educational programs, students and faculty. The campus is located in Bellingham, Washington, a coastal community of 90,000 overlooking Bellingham Bay, the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades Mountain range. The city lies 90 miles north of Seattle and 60 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Western has additional sites in Anacortes, Bremerton, Everett, Port Angeles, and Poulsbo. Western is recognized nationally for its successes, such as being named one of the top public master's-granting institutions in the Pacific Northwest for 25 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

Western Washington University is committed to achieving excellence through advancing inclusive success, increasing our Washington impact, and focusing on transformational education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences and based on innovative scholarship, research, and creative activity. Western's greatest strength is the outstanding students, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae who make up its community. Western supports an inclusive governance structure for all and provides a learning and working environment in which everyone can thrive. In pursuit of this excellence, individual employees are expected to establish and maintain productive and effective inclusive working relationships amongst diverse populations including staff, faculty, administration, student, and external constituents. Further, individual employees are expected to have the ability to operationalize sustainability concepts (economic, societal, environmental) into all aspects of performing their job duties.

Under leadership of the Director of Residence Life, in all aspects of the position the Assistant Director is responsible for collaboratively leading the efforts of the residence life department as part of the leadership team. This includes significant incorporation of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness perspectives throughout functional responsibility areas, ensuring the processes address systemic bias. Overall responsibilities include:

Staff Supervision, Selection, Training, and Performance Evaluation

• Provide direct supervision, training, and evaluation for 3 - 4 full-time, professional resident directors (RDs) and/or Supervising Residence Directors, and indirect supervision for 1-2 full time Assistant Resident Directors and approximately 100 undergraduate paraprofessional staff.
• One assistant director on the leadership team will directly supervise the Inclusion Assistant Program. The Inclusion Assistants are student leaders who provide mentorship, programming, and intentional outreach to all students in the residence halls to educate and create strong communities that incorporate our values of accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Create strategies to enhance the work of inclusive community building in the residence halls. Work closely with professional staff to ensure residential life staff are trained on issues of equity and inclusion, with particular emphasis on effectiveness in carrying out positional responsibilities in the residential environment.
• Through directing, coaching, mentoring, and evaluating staff, ensure staff perform assigned responsibilities in prescribed methods in accordance to standards established by department leadership.
• Regularly collect input from students, student staff and full-time staff to provide annual formal evaluations, as well as on-going informal feedback.
• Meet regularly with each professional staff individually to facilitate effective job performance as well as provide on-going professional development.
• Provide guidance and supervisory support to resident directors in developing and implementing residential programming, organized to create an atmosphere of self-directed learning and opportunity for working with other stakeholder offices in establishing positive student communities.

Student Development and Educational Leadership 

• Collaborate with leadership within University Residences to provide long-term strategic planning, short-term coordination of operations, and more immediate problem solving within the department. 
• Develop innovative programming strategies to support learning goals identified by the department.
• Provide leadership and coordinates departmental initiatives related to including accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADE&I) education into all aspects of the residential experience.
• Provide leadership, guidance, and assessment for the Affinity community/Living Learning Community program, comprised of multiple unique affinity communities.
• Support and advance departmental and institutional goals and values related to inclusive excellence.
• Collaborate with staff and faculty to assess and improve systems designed to support academically at-risk students.
• Collaborate with students, faculty, academic administrators and staff to enhance student learning through living-learning communities.
• Foster student leadership development through structures such as hall government and student staff training.
• Provide leadership in the development, implementation, interpretation and utilization of assessment to measure student learning and departmental effectiveness in achieving its goals.

Administrative Leadership 

• Serve in place of Director of Residence Life on a rotating basis when the Director is out of office
• Provide leadership in the development, implementation and assessment of department policies and processes.
• Serve as unit liaison for housing facility and maintenance related concerns, occupancy management and communications, the business office, and dining.
• Lead efforts on designated residence life initiatives including campus-wide partnerships and collaborative projects.
• Ensure residence life staff complete administrative tasks accurately and on-time and understand and adhere to all departmental and university policies, procedures and guidelines.
• Chair multiple committees within residence life on major operations such as training, recruitment and selection, equity and inclusion, and resident education.
• Assist the Director of Residence Life in development and review of the residence life budget, typically $3.5 - $4 million annually.
• Exercise signature authority for programming boards and staff programming budgets totaling $100,000 annually. Provide training and supervision to resident directors as they develop and execute programming budgets and advise student groups. Directly manage committee budgets for the recruitment and training of staff.
• Represent University Residences and Residence life with external stakeholders and exercise independent judgment in responding to and following up on stakeholder feedback and concerns, such as: inquiries from parents/families and the public related to incidents (e.g. student crisis, student misconduct, roommate conflicts) within parameters of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

 On-Call / After-Hours Responsibility 

• Serve in Residence Life leadership on-call rotation, serving as after-hours decision-maker for Residence Life emergencies/crises and supervisor for professional Residence Directors and Assistant Residence Directors on-call.
• Provide immediate support and direction for student and professional staff responding to emergency situations such as suicidal behaviors/ideation, sexual harassment, sexual assault, eating disorders, depression, physical assault, domestic violence, anger management, alcohol and drug abuse/dependency/overdose, or psychotic episodes.
•  Provide leadership for professional and student staff in providing supportive response to individuals and communities affected by serious or large-scale incidents such as moving a student to interim housing, deciding if a student is able to remain in the residence hall system, arranging for group or individual crisis counseling, and contacting parents.
• Maintain strong liaison relationships with a variety of university resources including, but not limited to, Office of Student Life, Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance, Survivor Advocacy Services, Multicultural Center, Ethnic Student Center, Disability Access Center, University Conduct Officer, the Student Health Center, Counseling, Health, and Wellness, University Police, Student Outreach Services, Academic Advising, the Tutoring Center, and New Student and Family Outreach Services.
• Notify directors and/or higher administration of incidents that are media worthy, involve significant harm/risk to safety to the residential campus student and staff community.

Student Conduct and CARE 

• Under direction of Director of Residence Life and in coordination with Assistant Director of Residence Life of Care and Conduct, provide leadership and vision for conduct process and care interventions
• Provide training, guidance, and support for resident directors as they implement the conduct process, including hearings, conduct decisions, and educational sanctioning.
• Hear conduct appeals from residents, typically in high-level conduct cases (i.e. violations related to drugs, alcohol, or physical/verbal assault).
• Provide training, guidance and support to staff following up on a wide range of care-related situations (homesickness, mental health challenges, roommate challenges, etc.)

 Other Duties 

• Serve on the Residence Life Leadership Team
• Residence Life Area and Combined Staff Meetings
• University Residence department committee(s) as appropriate
• Enrollment and Student Services Divisional committee(s) as needed.
• Provide annually a summary of DEI considerations and impacts in area of responsibility to University Residences executive director and/or designee.

• Master’s degree
• Three years full-time management or administrative experience in college or university residence education.
• Experience leading in a diverse and inclusive environment and a demonstrated commitment to building inclusive communities within a residential environment (a one page equity and inclusion statement must be submitted as part of the application)
• Experience with training, recruitment, and selection for all levels of staff within a residential environment.

• Experience supervising full-time, professional staff members (e.g. resident directors)
• Three to five years of progressively more responsible supervisory experience in college or university residential environments.
• Ability to develop educational strategies to foster student development and learning.
• Experience with crisis management.
• Professional, live-in residence hall or student housing staff experience.
• Ability to apply current student learning and development theories and research.

This position requires a fingerprint background check.

Benefits Overview for Administrative Professional Position.

A complete application includes: 1) a cover letter addressing the required and preferred qualifications; 2) a resume; 3) the names and contact information for three professional references (including a current or past supervisor) and 4) a one-page equity and inclusion statement:

Equity and inclusion statement: Also required is a separate statement (max. length one page) addressing your demonstrated commitment to equity and inclusion, in addition to the ability to create an inclusive residence hall community.  In the statement, please include examples of your past work that demonstrate your commitment to equity and inclusion in addition to describing how you will contribute to further implement these values at Western Washington University through the position responsibilities outlined above.

Western Washington University (WWU) is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained faculty and staff. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. In compliance with applicable laws and in furtherance of its commitment to fostering an environment that welcomes and embraces diversity, WWU does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and parenting status), disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status or genetic information in its programs or activities, including employment, admissions, and educational programs. See WWU’s Policy on Ensuring Equal Opportunity and Prohibiting Discrimination and Retaliation. Inquiries may be directed to the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance, Title IX and ADA Coordinator, Western Washington University, Old Main 126 (MS 9021), 516 High Street, Bellingham, WA 98225; 360.650.3307 (voice) or 711 (Washington Relay); crtc@wwu.edu

WWU is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. To request this document in an alternate format or to request an accommodation, please contact Human Resources Disability Services, 360.650.3751 or 711 (Washington Relay).

Annual Security and Fire Safety Report: This report is provided pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act ("The Clery Act"). It includes statistics for the previous three calendar years concerning reported crimes that occurred on Western's campus; in certain off-campus buildings or property owned or controlled by Western; and on public property within, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from, the campus. The report also includes institutional policies concerning campus security, such as policies concerning alcohol and drug use, crime prevention, the reporting of crimes, sexual assault, and other matters. You can obtain a copy of this report in printed or alternate formats by contacting the Office of the Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services at vpsa.office@wwu.edu. The report can be found at: Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.

All new employees must comply with the immunization policy and show employment eligibility verification as required by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service before beginning work at WWU. A thorough background check will be conducted on all new hires which includes a sexual misconduct background check.