Tokyo City Director

ABOUT MINERVA UNIVERSITY

Minerva University, based in San Francisco, California, offers a unique undergraduate experience for the brightest, most motivated students in the world. Minerva has been deliberately designed to teach the capabilities needed to solve complex challenges. Combining a reinvented curriculum, rigorous academic standards, cutting-edge technology, and an immersive global experience, Minerva provides an exceptional and accessible education to prepare future leaders and innovators across all disciplines.

Minerva undergraduate students come from all over the world to spend their first year in residence in San Francisco, and then live and study in major cities around the world. These rich international experiences provide students with deep global understanding and skills.

ABOUT STUDENT LIFE

The Student Life team oversees the growth and development of students outside the classroom. Student Life staff members work within and across teams focused on residential life and Minerva community development, civic engagement and city/cultural immersion, mental health and wellbeing, and professional development of students to prepare them for post-graduation employment or graduate and professional school. These teams are unified by a shared goal of providing and/or supporting opportunities for integrated learning for our diverse and global student community.

THE ROLE

This role is ideally suited for someone who is passionate about student growth and development, believes deeply in experiential learning, enjoys building relationships with partners, excels at project management, gets energized looking for creative solutions and has experience leading and managing a team. The City Director is the most senior representative of Minerva in the region and works collaboratively with staff and faculty throughout the organization to provide a high quality experience for the current students while also supporting the institution to have a strong presence and recognition in the region.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Reporting to the Associate Dean, Student Life with advisory collaboration with the deans responsible for Counseling And Psychological Services (CAPS) and Coaching and Talent Development (CTD), the City Director will lead the Student Life Team in Tokyo.

Directly reporting to the City Director will be a Residential Life Manager (RLM) and an Experiential Education Manager (EEM) in the assigned city, this team will support all activities in the city and provide students with a holistic semester experience.

In addition to the core general functions outlined below, the City Director will have overall responsibility for the following:

• The full operation of the rotation city in collaboration with their assigned Global Director and in the supervision of their own direct reports.
• Ultimately responsible for development and implementation of the high-level strategy, overarching narrative and cohesion of goals and timeliness of messaging to students and staff relative to their rotation city, holding the Student Life Team accountable to content deadlines, facilitating meetings and checking in and providing feedback on deliverables, in collaboration with the entire Global Oversight team.

The City Director will oversee and be responsible for:

• Leading, managing, and supporting members of the city-based Student Life Team to support their development, growth, and potential in their respective roles
• Manage the administration of City life, collaborating with appropriate government, partner, and in city resources to ensure a smooth running city operations.
• Oversight and management of the city budget
• Coordinate and implement the on the ground administration of student visa process for students arriving in Japan.
• Crisis and emergency management response including implementation and management
• Effective team delivery of major events (the City Director will project-manage student orientation, and oversee the production of milestone community events/traditions (as relevant) in coordination with the global Student Life Team. Similarly they will oversee the staff in creating partnership events meant to engage the external community with Minerva and its students.
• Close collaboration with Academics and specific faculty members (supporting them while present in Japan and remotely) to ensure effective and coordinated delivery of courses related to the Japan program.
• Maintaining ongoing relationship(s) with residence hall property management, University partners, the local technology provider in collaboration with Minerva’s technology consultant, and Minerva Japan. Will be the primary point of contact for partnership opportunities with local professionals and organizations, passing on contacts to the Partnerships Manager when applicable.
• Provide timely and relevant information to support the administration of the grant that funds the rotation in Japan.
• Using a student development framework, respond to and report student policy violations in the city including formal student conduct cases in collaboration with the relevant Global Director.
• Other duties as assigned.

STUDENT LIFE GROUND TEAM RESPONSIBILITIES

In addition, the City Director will be responsible for a set of common, core Student Life Team functions as a key member of city management.

These responsibilities will include the following, along with others to be determined by local need and guided by the City Director:

• City preparation, opening and closing, including check-in and check-out duties

• Close collaboration on all events, including milestones, with assigned lead responsibilities overseen by the in-city Student Life Team lead. This includes collaboration in event planning and preparation, facilitation and closing.
• Emergency support and health and safety management with relevant training provided.
• Holding the city’s Emergency Phone for one week out of every three, across the whole semester, during which the on-duty employee cannot leave the rotation city.
• Defined visibility during the Monday to Friday working week inside the residence hall; with demonstrable active contributions during the entire semester, including the requirement for some weekend or evening work.
• Meeting attendance and participation: In-person attendance at all Student Life Team Meetings and any others as designated by the City Director and/or Global Director.
• Participating in all elements of semester programming on the ground at the direction of the Global Director.
• Collaborate with Advancement, Academics, Outreach, Alumni, Marketing and Academics to support Minerva’s success and operations in each Minerva city including connecting with prospective students in the region, hosting events for alumni or donors, and connecting with regional media outlets.
• With the oversight of the City Director, collaboration on program and event budgeting and the localization of experiences when implementing event templates

QUALIFICATIONS

It is preferred that the City Director have a broad working knowledge of Tokyo, including fluency in the local language and a local professional network. In addition, it is required that the incumbent have valid work authorization within Japan while employed with Minerva.

The City Director will be expected to be able to demonstrate the following attributes to support the team and the resident students:

• Excellent communication skills (written and verbal) and an understanding of the primacy of effective communication in this role; conflict resolution; rapid problem-solving; deep awareness of intercultural dynamics; team building and collaboration; adaptability and flexibility
• Emergency response and health and safety protocol design and daily administration; operations and logistics;
• Skilled at program design and facilitation; project management; design-thinking
• Partner relationship management and a willingness to learn and utilize CRM partnership engagement tracking tools.

Review of applications will begin November 15th. This position is expected to begin February 1st.