Senior Institutional Research Analyst

The Senior Institutional Research Analyst supports South Central College’s enrollment management and institutional effectiveness activities. The senior analyst oversees, organizes, and produces mandatory, scheduled, and ad hoc reports requested of the department. The senior analyst conducts research studies and advanced data analytics to support student success, informed decision-making by the College, and in compliance with Federal, state, grantor, and accreditation requirements. The senior analyst may advise and assist colleagues with research design and analysis.

The senior analyst leads efforts to implement and improve the College’s data literacy and utilization by collaborating with IT and others in developing processes for data access, architecture, models, and visualizations.

In their research work, the senior analyst fosters the College’s equity goals by giving voice to diverse identities through means such as data disaggregation, contextualization, and participatory research projects.

The senior analyst brings advanced knowledge of and experience with relational databases, descriptive and inferential statistics, state and Federal data privacy laws, and tools for querying, analyzing, reporting, and visualizing data.

1. Instituational Research reporting

a.      Plans, designs, runs reports and analyses (external and internal, scheduled and ad hoc).

b.     Consult with clients to assess their needs

c.      Coach and guide other IR staff to ensure accuracy, develop their skills

2.  Improve data literacy of SCC staff and faculty

a.      Working with IT and other partners in Minn State, improve tools, training, resources, dashboards, etc. available to faculty and staff

b.     Improve data governance and architecture (e.g., NextGen transition)

c.      Support evidence-based decision-making with strategy for SEIE’s online presence … dashboards, website, training webinars, etc.

3. Systems and processes to manage SEIE’s IR capacity

a.      Reporting calendar, maintenance schedule for IR reports, dashboards, website.

b.     Tracking and monitoring ad hoc and scheduled requests. Analysis and adjustment of IR workload.

4. Shared role in process automation

a.      Participates in Workday implementation for South Central College

b.     Coordinates process automation, forms, database management, and SharePoint administration with SEIE and IT colleagues

5. Represent SEIE in committees and workgroups. 

6. Perform other duties as assigned to ensure the smooth functioning of the department and maintain the reputation of the organization as a viable business partner.

Minimum Qualifications (expected to have to enter job)

• Bachelor's degree in social science, computer science, statistics or related field

• Two years of experience with higher education and educational research, including conducting statistical analyses and querying database systems using tools such as SQL or Python

• One year of experience with the use of statistical software packes, data reporting/visualization, and/or survey software, such as Microsoft Excel, SPSS, SAS, R, PowerBI, Tableau, or Qualtrics

• Excellent oral and written communication skills

Preferred Qualifications (desired but not expected to have to enter job)

• Master's Degree in a relevant field

• At least three years current experience working with large, complex educational data sets, including designing and conducting approprate statstical test and reporting on the results

• One year of experience developing dashboards using software such as PowerBI or Tableau

• Experience coaching others in the effective use of data and provide guidance to colleagues or student workers

• Familiarity with FERPA, the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, and other laws, poilcies, etc.

• Demonstrated experience working with diverse cultures and populations, and a willingness to improve cultural competence