Departmental Administrator

Job Summary: Departmental Administrator

Vanderbilt University Medical Center Executive Search Team is conducting a national search for a Departmental Administrator. This position is an essential administrative leadership role in the Department of Biostatistics.

Our Department has a dynamic reach across Vanderbilt where our faculty members collaborate on biomedical research. We also offer an innovative and contemporary graduate program. Our mission is to engage in and facilitate collaborative endeavors in biomedicine and the basic sciences, conduct groundbreaking methodological research, promote interdisciplinary discovery, train the next generation of PhD and MS Biostatisticians, and act as an educational resource for biomedical researchers and Vanderbilt.

Serving as a Chief Business Officer for the department, this position has full responsibility for planning, organizing, and managing departmental (multiple functional areas) fiscal and human resources to achieve the administrative objectives of the department in support of collaborative research and educational activities. The role provides facilities management and oversight of equipment purchases and maintenance across the department.

A global perspective and high level of professionalism are needed as this position will interact with a diverse faculty and student population as well as leaders from the academic health care field across Vanderbilt, the local community, nationally and internationally.

Responsibilities will include but are not limited to the following:

* Function as an integral part of the Medical Center administrative leadership.
* Attend operational meetings related to administrative staff.
* Attend meetings as representative of department chair and interacts with the Academic Enterprise, Hospitals, Medical Center, Administration to ensure coordination and integration of activities in compliance with established policies and procedures.
* Prepares reports for management's review.
* Works independently on projects related to administrative areas of responsibility.
* Develop and implement plans, goals, and objectives that are consistent with VUMC Objectives.
* Interpret, adapt and communicate policies/procedures established at higher management levels to departmental staff.
* Develop, authorize, implement and evaluate policies/procedures for all activities under position jurisdiction.
* Create an organizational culture (both within and across departments) that provides a safe, satisfying and enriching environment for employees and provides a qualified, competent staff.
* Provide sound personnel and payroll administration to ensure internal salary equity within the department.
* Develop departmental EEO/affirmative action guidelines.
* Perform manpower planning and staffing needs assessment.
* Provide training for staff development.
* Assure that complaints and grievances are handled in accordance with VUMC policies.
* Develop and implement a fiscal program based on long range plans and forecasts of needs and costs.
* Serve as Chief Business Officer for the department; function as the contact point regarding departmental fiscal and administrative matters.
* Authorize, approve and sign purchase and equipment requisition, travel and other expenses.
* Monitor collections and expenditures against budgets and grants.
* Analyze requisitions for conformance to budget and compliance with specific requirements and restrictions.
* Prepare annual operating budget for chair's approval and that of VUMC leadership.
* Recommend distribution and allocation of general department resources.
* Coordinate departmental contracts binding upon VUMC with the appropriate internal and external contracting authorities.
* In consultation with principal investigator(s), develop, implement, and monitor the budgetary aspects of research proposals/awards.
* Represent the department internally and externally with granting agencies in the non-scientific components.
* Prepare or direct preparation of final expenditure reports.
* Formulate and administer policies and procedures for management and maintenance of physical plant.
* Make space allocation and equipment purchase recommendations.
* Consult and coordinate with VUMC services for upkeep, renovation and other services.

Minimum Qualifications:
This position requires a Bachelor's degree and a minimum of seven years of relevant experience.

Preferred experience and skills:
* Must have strong communication and interpersonal skills
* Demonstrated administrative leadership experience
* Strong written and verbal communication skills
* Professional work style with high level of problem solving skills
* Familiarity with the Medical Center's organizational structure, policies and procedures is desirable.

Department Summary:

Biostatistics is the branch of statistics responsible for the proper interpretation of scientific data generated in the biomedical sciences. In these sciences, subjects (patients, mice, cells, etc.) exhibit considerable variation in their response to stimuli. This variation may be due to different treatments or it may be due to chance, measurement error, or underlying characteristics of the individual subjects. Biostatistics is particularly concerned with disentangling these different sources of variation, as well as seeking to distinguish between correlation and causation, and making valid inferences from known samples. (For example, when patients are treated with two different therapies, do the results justify the conclusion that one treatment is better than the other?)

Biostatistics Philosophy:

At Vanderbilt, our biostatisticians understand the changing landscape for statistical science: we not only facilitate biomedical research by providing methodological expertise and by closely collaborating with scientists and physician-researchers, we also are leaders in the data revolution. From methodology to application to education, we embrace the concepts of data science, and continue to advance our ability to extract evidence from data. We welcome the challenges and opportunities of the big data era--from the explosive growth in sheer volume of data, to treating unstructured text as quantitative data, to machine learning, to burgeoning applications for artificial intelligence--and look forward to ever-more-rapid advances in biomedical knowledge.

Discover Vanderbilt University Medical Center:

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is a comprehensive health care facility dedicated to patient care, research, and biomedical education. Our reputation for excellence in these areas has made us a major center for patient referrals from throughout the Mid-South. Each year, people throughout Tennessee and the Southeast choose Vanderbilt University Medical Center for their health care because of our leadership in medical science and our dedication to treating patients with dignity and compassion.

As the largest employer in middle Tennessee, we welcome those who are interested in ongoing development in a caring, culturally sensitive and professional atmosphere. Most of us spend so much of our lives at work, we want to be part of maintaining a workplace in which people support one another and encourage reaching for excellence. Many high-achieving employees stay at Vanderbilt because of the professional growth they experience and because of their appreciation of Vanderbilt's benefits, public events and discussions, athletic opportunities, beautiful setting and, above all, sense of community and purpose.