Director of Institutional Data Analysis and Planning

Optimizing Data and Insights to Inform Decisions.

Saint Mary’s University is building on its strong tradition of accessibility and community engagement as the university of choice for aspiring citizens of the world. In keeping with its motto, Age Quod Agis, translated “Do What You Do,” students, faculty, and staff are committed to strengthening academic and administrative effectiveness as a strategic priority in achieving its mission.

To develop a Culture of Evidence-Based Decision-Making across the institution, Saint Mary’s is seeking a Director of Institutional Data Analysis and Planning to provide campus-wide leadership and support in the collection, management, interpretation, and use of institutional data for assessment, planning, and decision-making. This position monitors key institutional indicators, ensuring integrity of data/information, and predictive analytics to support institutional objectives. Bringing together and mining multiple sources of data, Saint Mary’s seeks a facilitative leader to foster a culture of data-informed decision-making and data literacy as a competitive advantage for the university.

Reporting to the Vice President Academic and Research, the Director is responsible for identifying, building, coordinating, and facilitating analytic supports to aid decision-making by senior management and departments in areas related to institutional management, policy formulation, government funding, program review processes, problem identification, problem solving, and planning with particular reference to core drivers of organizational strength such as student enrolment and retention.

The Director is a leader in institutional research, planning, and institutional effectiveness that becomes indispensable to effective decision-making at the university leading the office responsible for understanding institutional needs, managing a team, and working collaboratively with senior leaders and data custodians across the university. The office provides transformational and facilitative leadership to, and collaboration with, other key reporting functions on campus to ensure connections, consistency, and integrity of information management, collection, and reporting. The position initiates and supports strategic questioning and strategic decision-making across the university’s divisions, departments, both with information and competitive intelligence to strategically look ahead, assess, and evaluate past progress toward objectives and recommend metrics and data sets.

The successful candidate will have a Master’s degree or equivalent in a program with strong data, statistical research, and reporting qualifications, and will possess at least five years of related experience in a managerial capacity. Demonstrated experience in evaluation and assessment within a post-secondary setting is preferred. Proven experience leading, building, and developing high performance teams is required, as is experience in organizational planning and management of resources. Excellent written, oral, and presentation skills are mandatory. A strong technical aptitude and skills in quantitative analytical software tools such as excel, access, SPSS, SAS, and R are required. Experience with Banner/Oracle is an asset. Experience writing reports from a relational database and knowledge of SQL is necessary.

To learn more about Saint Mary’s University, please visit www.smu.ca.

Saint Mary’s University encourages applications from diverse candidates. If you are Indigenous, African Canadian, a racially visible person, persons with disabilities, or a woman, you are encouraged to self-identify on your cover letter or your resume. To learn more about this opportunity, please forward your resume and interest in confidence with the email subject line “Saint Mary’s Director IDAP” to Royer Thompson at recruit@royerthompson.com. For further information please contact Amy Reid or Kim West at 902-422-2099.

Royer Thompson Management & Human Resources Consulting is a Canadian talent management firm focused on capturing the full potential of people in organizations by supporting a shared sense of purpose, recruiting and cultivating leadership, and fostering an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit.