DEPARTMENT ASSISTANTS

Your department’s assistant will report to you as department chair. Effective use of the assistant can help you concentrate your energies on longer-term issues of leadership, faculty development, curricular evolution, mentoring of younger colleagues, faculty reviews, recruiting and hiring, etc. You should work with your assistant as needed to help set priorities. Course and student-related work should normally be the top priority, followed by departmental work, and then individual faculty work.

Following is a list of functions that may be performed by your department assistant. You may find it useful to use this as a checklist when talking with your assistant about responsibilities or in planning and conducting your assistant’s performance review.

The Department Assistant normally:

• Oversees day-to-day operations of the office including calendar of events, activities, meetings of chair and faculty, etc.
• Answers calls and inquiries, screens and directs calls, and takes messages.
• Assists students with questions and problems.
• Sorts and distributes mail.
• Interviews, hires, supervises, schedules, and evaluates student workers.
• Inventories, orders, and maintains office equipment, supplies, and furniture.
• Orders/renews department subscriptions.
• Creates and maintains department filing system.
• Prepares classroom materials including syllabi, exercises, quizzes, examinations, and other course material.
• Prepares and edits course information and catalog copy.
• Prepares correspondence for faculty members such as recommendation letters, requests for information, grant proposals, manuscripts, notices to students, etc.
• Assists faculty serving on College committees.
• Arranges department retreats and social functions.
• Prepares mailings to new sophomore majors.
• Arranges transportation, housing, meals, honorariums, lecture and meeting rooms for visitors, including seminar speakers, job applicants, and review committee members and transportation for faculty travel or class field trips.
• Maintains alumni statistics.
• Assists in the preparation of scholarly papers, etc., as time permits.
• Designs, creates, and maintains departmental web pages.

The Department Assistant often:

• Monitors majors’ files for completion of graduation requirements. Prepares report for registrar.
• Prepares and monitors department budget. Maintains records for departmental Visa account and reconciles statements. Maintains petty cash fund.
• Meets regularly with chair to discuss current department business.
• Assists in recruiting by placing ads, sending letters to appropriate graduate programs, maintaining applicant files, sending acknowledgement letters, recording receipt of application materials, organizing interview schedules, making travel arrangements, and handling reimbursement expenses.
• Assists with department reviews.
• Maintains department handbook.
• Opens and prioritizes mail for the department chair.

The Department Assistant sometimes:

• Attends department meetings, drafts agendas, takes and distributes minutes, tracks action items and deadlines.
• Coordinates, edits, designs, publishes, and distributes departmental newsletter.
• Assists in organizing off-campus programs: posts brochures and info on the web, tracks applications, notifies accepted students, publicizes meetings, etc.
• Assists in assigning faculty advisers.
• Tracks action items associated with incoming mail and monitors deadlines.