Min T/E Requirements
Master’s Degree preferred or Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university in Business, Accounting, Higher Education, Administration or related field; a minimum of three years of professional experience in business, education or an appropriate student services-related field; effective interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills; strong desktop and office automation skills.
FTE 1
Recruitment Range Commensurate with Education and Experience
Anticipated Hiring Range Commensurate with Education and Experience
Position # 2924
FLSA Status Exempt
Months per year 12
Primary Purpose of Organization Unit
The mission of the Office of Financial Aid is to provide access to higher education. We provided information to continuing students, prospective students, and families about the availability of funding from federal, state, and institutional sources. Through financial literacy and guidance, we support student success. The Office of Financial Aid contributes to the University’s retention efforts by providing on-going assistance and support to continuing students. While complying with Federal, State, and Institutional regulations and guidelines, we ensure equity and consistency in the delivery of funds to students.

Primary Purpose of Position
To serve continuing and new UNCP students. Coordinate and partner with faculty and staff. Collaborate with offices across campus to provide an excellent customer experience for students and families. The Assistant Director will work to enhance productivity and ensure compliance and create a smooth financial aid process. The Assistant Director works with co-workers to coordinate an excellent customer experience ensuring that excellent customer service is provided to students, families, faculty, staff, alumni, and third parties. The ideal candidate will bring a vision and passion as well as experience in customer service and employee engagement. A combination of excellent communication skills across several mediums and the ability to act as a link between students, employees, and the university is highly desired.

Must be available for additional hours, including evenings and weekends as needed.

Job Description
Counsel prospective and enrolled students, parents and community members on all aspects of financial aid. Determine eligibility for and award financial aid to students in accordance with federal, state and institutional guidelines, policies, rules and regulations. Create and maintain the best possible “effortless” support experience for customers. Develop and lead strategic and operational initiatives aimed at improving support services. Ensure that team addresses customer inquiries and concerns promptly and professionally. Monitor phone conversations to ensure customer service protocols are followed by all and provide training as needed to ensure quality control. Ability to collaborate and work effectively with departmental and university leadership as well as other departments across campus to negotiate and influence customer improvements. Identify and resolve problems that affect customer service quality and efficiency. Create reports to ensure management objectives are achieved including employee development plans, development of team training strengths and weaknesses. Enabling teams to be successful by being dedicated to coaching, developing, providing feedback, encouraging, recognizing, and facilitating clear outcomes and creating a highly engaged team. Assist students with the completion of required financial aid forms and electronic processes such as the Free Application for Student Financial Aid (FAFSA), master promissory notes, entrance loan counseling and other related electronic forms. Communicates and work with other student services offices to timely and effectively resolve student inquires. Assist in resolving employee concerns and developing customer focused environment. Organize customer service training for the team to meet departmental objectives. Assists department leadership in resolving escalated and complex customer issues on-time. Provide back-up assistance to team members when needed. Available to travel to events, other UNC universities, or training opportunities as needed. Assist in developing and implementing plans and goals for the department. Ensure compliance with regulations and internal policies. Performs data analysis and has the ability to create charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and reports and makes recommendations for improvement. Fulfill duties/projects as assigned by the director. Provide back-up assistance to team members when needed. Establish and maintain department records to comply with UNCP policies and state and federal regulations. A high level of professionalism, commitment, work ethic and independent judgment with a strong sense of discretion, initiative and sound decision-making skills are required. The individual must have excellent writing, editing and proofreading skills, organizational skills and the ability to effectively handle multiple priorities.

This position will also review work of the FA Counselors and make sure they are following rules as prescribed in the FSA Handbook. This position will also be responsible for FA Training, presentations, Backup FA Outreach/Events and Default Prevention for the FA department.

Other duties as assigned by the Associate Director or Director of Financial Aid.

This position is designated as Mandatory Personnel. Employees whose presence has been determined to be mandatory to University operations during certain types of adverse weather or emergency events.
Management Preference
Some management experience (Preferred)
Some working knowledge of Financial Aid and related systems (Preferred)