Faculty Collaboratives—AAC&U
Hub Director Position
DRAFT POSITION DESCRIPTION
November 24, 2014
NOTE: The table below lays out objectives, responsibilities, tasks, and timeline. The
text material below the table offers an overview description that can serve as a
position description.
Big Project Objectives:
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Build capacity for faculty
engagement in proficiency-centered,
LEAP-related large-scale projects for
student success and degree
attainment in states (and networked
across states)
Connect the big initiatives (LEAP,
DQP, Tuning, GEMs, VALUE MSC) via
this effort
Create state-specific models for
expanding faculty social networks
and creative outreach to share
practices both online and face-toface
Provide excellent resources at hubs
in states
Build durable statewide and national
leadership and social communities of
practice and a durable, flexible
repository for shared work
Network the networks
Make excellence inclusive
Hub Director Responsibilities:
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Tasks:
 Communicates regularly,
according to state and overall
project timeline, with state
liaison/team and external
partners/stakeholders
 Communicates regularly with
Collaborates with emerging state
team (liaison, advisory, fellows) on
all project activities
Consults with state liaison and team
on horizon scanning—figuring out
o what faculty (all faculty)
could use for a website and
communication hub
o how the hub can function as
a leadership center for faceto-face events for faculty
leadership and learning and
creative outreach to
newcomers
o what faculty survey
information is available in
the state relative to this
project
Takes lead in designing hub as part
of the collaborative activity of the
state work plan
Receives and uses feedback on
emerging design, according to state
work plan and in consultation with
state team
Takes lead in implementing hub plan
according to project work plan
overall and in the state
Participates with state team in
assessment activities
Timeline (Refer to project chronological
timeline, posted in the Toolkit):
November-December 2014: State
liaisons complete the process of
selecting and confirming hub directors
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Faculty Collaboratives—AAC&U
Hub Director Position
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state/collaborative fellows
Communicates regularly with hub
directors in the other phase 1
states and with AAC&U staff
(AAC&U will organize this work)
Contributes to the national
educational framework
(“curriculum” of the project)
(AAC&U will organize this work)
Attends all project and national
meetings (virtual and face-toface)
Completes assigned tasks,
including
o direct work or oversight
for collecting, saving,
organizing, and eventual
posting of materials and
artifacts from fellows
o social networking
management for hub
o building or connecting
communities in
state/collaborative (with
fellows)
o contributing to progress
reports (co-written with
liaison and fellows)
o finding opportunities for
innovation
o contributing to resource
development
o organizing events (face-toface and virtual) for the
state/collaborative, in
partnership with state
team
Participates in assessment
activities as assigned (AAC&U will
draft project assessment rubric)
December 2014: State liaisons assemble
teams for Kansas City—including hub
directors
Dec. 5: Send names of planned attendees
for Kansas City (as you have them) and
headcount you expect (even if you don’t
have names) to Melissa Gray
(gray@aacu.org)
January 14, 2015: Send all names of
attendees for Kansas City meeting to
Melissa Gray.
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Faculty Collaboratives—AAC&U
Hub Director Position
Position Description: AAC&U and ________________________________[name of
state/collaborative]
Organized by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), through
the Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative, with funding from
Lumina Foundation, the Faculty Collaboratives project (2014-2017) intends to build
capacity for faculty engagement in a defined set of large-scale projects to improve
the quality of college education. Working in the AAC&U LEAP States, the project
focuses on proficiency-centered, LEAP-related large-scale projects for student
success and degree attainment. The project intends to help faculty learn from and
contribute in creative ways to DQP/Tuning and LEAP GEMs/VALUE MSC activities
in multiple state settings. In addition, it aims to organize networked activity for
faculty leadership and learning across states. This project hopes to serve as the
creative source for engagement over time in and across states and also to support
networked communities as they build repositories or one-stop centers for faculty
leadership and learning—for outreach to educators in the future.
The project will succeed insofar as it helps states or collaboratives to create the
means for engaging all faculty and all educators—whatever their position, type of
contract, or institutional type—in the changing work of teaching and learning as
higher education itself goes through transitions into the future.
Phase 1 of the project (2014-2016) begins as a partnership across five of the LEAP
States: California, Indiana, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. During 2014-2015, phase 1
hub directors will join emerging state or collaborative teams. The teams themselves
will collaborate to build innovation hubs to serve as leadership and learning centers
for all faculty and all educators in the state or collaborative.
The phase 1 Faculty Collaboratives hub directors will have two key areas of
responsibility and opportunities for creativity:
1) The hub director will work together with the state liaison to provide
leadership for the four or five faculty fellows (depending on the size of the
collaborative). Together (according to the work plan for the state team) they
will organize state/collaborative team meetings, offer feedback as the
fellows’ research and curriculum development progresses, and organize
convenings and workshops. The hub director and faculty fellows in each
state, according to individual state/collaborative action plans, will organize
and participate in activities for outreach to faculty in the state. The phase 1
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Faculty Collaboratives—AAC&U
Hub Director Position
hub directors as a group will work closely together and will share strategies
and challenges on a bi-monthly basis (this work to be organized by AAC&U
staff).
2) The hub director will oversee and provide guidance for the development
of a hub web space that will be used to connect and share the project’s
findings throughout the state. This work should rely on campus and state
expertise about what works in terms of website design and placement to
ensure a navigable, useful, and sustainable hub. The hub director will give
special attention to design and functionality—how the hub web space can be
intentionally linked, networked, and publicized throughout the state; ways
that it can serve as a social networking space and help to organize activities
on the ground.
The hub director is expected to serve for the first two years of the project, from fall
2014 through summer 2016. Project activities will continue a third year, through
September 2017, and hub directors will be invited to participate in specified
activities in the third year. Hub directors will receive a modest stipend or
honorarium ($6,000 for each of the first two years) and will in addition receive
travel support to attend project convenings.
Budget management will be the responsibility of the state liaison. The hub director
will rely on and collaborate with the state liaison for state outreach for the purpose
of pooling resources, dissemination, environmental assessment, and relationship
building.
AAC&U invites each state liaison (with advisory, as appropriate) to identify the state
hub director through a process helpful to the state system or collaborative. The
attached project summary may be shared with candidates or applicants for hub
directorships.
For purposes of this project, the definition of hub is broad and fluid. Examples of
sites that incorporate features of interest include the Learning Emergence/Network
Improvement Communities at learningemergence.net/2014/05/29/learninganalytics-plus-nics-for-systemic-edu-improvement/ and a model from City Tech,
CUNY: http://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/livinglab/
Across the phase 1 states, the hub directors will work closely together and will
share strategies and challenges on a bi-monthly basis. Hub directors will consider,
for example, how communication, research, and workshop activities may be
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Faculty Collaboratives—AAC&U
Hub Director Position
completed with an eye to sustaining the role of the hub and the continuing efforts of
faculty fellows. The hub directors group will contribute to development of a
curriculum or educational framework that states can share.
Hub directors need to understand that sustaining this work will mean embedding
the hub’s development plan and goals within larger or pre-existing statewide
initiatives. The state team will undertake this broader planning work together.
State teams may choose to include directors of centers for teaching and learning, or
with centers or offices concerned with scholarship of teaching and learning. AAC&U
invites state teams to design the work of the hub according to statewide multiinstitutional goals.
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