Summary Statement

Reporting to the Assistant Dean and Executive Director of the Center for Community Engagement, the Associate Director works strategically to advance community-engaged scholarship, teaching and learning at UCLA. The Associate Director works closely with the Assistant Dean/Executive Director to guide implementation of strategic priorities for the Center and as articulated in the UCLA Strategic Plan relating to advancing community-engaged research and teaching, collection of data and assessing impact. This individual supports the effort to increase resources for the Center for Community Engagement and community-engaged scholarship and teaching more broadly through grant writing and donor cultivation. This individual also contributes to teaching in the interdisciplinary minor in Community Engagement and Social Change.

Strategic Leadership

To enact UCLA’s vision for enhancing community engagement as articulated in the UCLA Strategic Plan: Goal 1—Deepening UCLA’s Engagement with Los Angeles, the Associate Director offers intellectual leadership, builds campus collaborations, and contributes to developing programs and policies to strategically advance community-engaged scholarship and teaching across UCLA, consistent with UCLA’s strategic plan. The Associate Director plays a central role in advancing UCLA towards reclassification in the elective Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement.

Building on the Center’s work with individual faculty to develop community-engaged courses, the Associate Director for Strategic Initiatives works with academic departments and university committees as appropriate to support faculty who pursue community-engaged scholarship and teaching. The Associate Director works with department chairs, deans, and the Academic Senate to build incentives and advance tenure and promotion policies that recognize scholarly activity and achievement in community-engaged scholarship, teaching and service.

The Associate Director executes special projects for the Assistant Dean/Executive Director and serves as the Assistant Dean/Executive Director’s representative with both internal and external audiences to communicate the Center’s vision and agenda as needed.

The Associate Director plays a key role in supporting the Special Advisor to the EVCP for Community-Engaged Scholarship as well as the Community Engagement Advisors Network and the UCLA LA Community Engagement Council.

Grant Writing and Development

The Associate Director plays a leadership role in advancing the Center’s ability to support community-engaged scholarship, teaching and learning through a close working relationship with College Development staff. This individual collaborates with the Division of Undergraduate Education’s Director of Development to cultivate donors, and Director for Foundation and Corporate Relations to develop grant proposals.

Teaching and Scholarship

The Associate Director teaches courses that contribute to the interdisciplinary minor in Community Engagement and Social Change. As time and resources permit, the Associate Director may present at scholarly and/or professional meetings and publish in scholarly and/or professional journals.

Qualifications

The candidate must have a doctoral degree, with significant knowledge and experience in the field of community-engagement and higher education. The candidate must demonstrate evidence of strategic thinking and leadership, strong oral and written communication skills, ability to forge collaborative relationships, commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, a record of effective leadership and experience in grant writing and/or development. The ideal candidate will have experience working at the departmental and institutional level to promote community-engaged scholarship and teaching.