| The Student Worker Supervisor/One Stop Counselor serves as a direct supervisor to the Customer Relations Representatives in One Stop Student Services. This leadership position is directly in charge of hiring, recruiting, training, evaluating, and integrating Customer Relations Representatives into their roles within the unit. Student Supervisor/One Stop Counselors report directly to the Assistant Director of One Stop Student Services and work hand in hand with unit leadership to define the role of the Customer Relations Representative and strategically plan for the future of the role. The Student Worker Supervisor/One Stop Counselor is the most senior counseling/advising role for counseling and advising on complex issues and problems regarding student academic and degree progress, as well as financial matters. This position has direct responsibility and accountability for increasing graduation and retention rates. Additionally, they handle some of the most challenging behaviors and difficult situations that can surface when speaking with students and parents about academic success and financial matters. The Student Worker Supervisor/One Stop Counselor position requires an in-depth understanding of academic information, registration, financial aid, academic records, and student financial billing in order to facilitate direct impacts to the University’s retention and graduation rates. Student Worker Supervisors coach and mentor the Customer Relations Representatives, as well as assume responsibility for escalated situations from these staff adn other collegiate/departmental staff, academic advisers, and faculty. Student Worker Supervisors/One Stop Counselors are expected to be experts on financial wellness, academic policies, and degree progress. They are held responsible for critical analysis and professional judgment on financial aid/student records appeals, waivers, and petitions. They develop curriculum and educational materials for several different initiatives, including financial literacy, instructional curriculum of all Customer Relations Representatives, and ongoing training required to ensure they remain as experts in compliance for institutional, state, and federal regulations. The Student Worker Supervisor/One Stop Counselor provides leadership for various committees to promote professional development and student success, and communicate with campus and community resources through outreach efforts to promote collaboration and improve services to students. This position also leads strategic program enhancements and provides leadership on projects for the organization. Through their vast knowledge of the University populations, Student Worker Supervisors/One Stop Counselors frequently generate new programs and develop program enhancements, such as financial wellness workshops that appropriately guide students towards future financial independence and developing success roadmaps to advise students on their academic and financial objectives. Critical thinking and problem-solving are paramount to the success of this position when bringing together multidimensional components of knowledge. Counseling & Advising (35%) - Serve in the most senior role to counsel, advise, investigate, problem-solve, and resolve issues from prospective, current, and former students, parents, faculty, staff, collegiate units, other third parties, and the public.
- Manage the most extreme of escalated and complex situations from the Customer Relations Representatives.
- Look continually for ways to improve services to students by internally or cross-functionally developing new initiatives that will contribute to retention, graduation, student satisfaction, and other student success measures.
- Deliver a holistic counseling experience for course enrollment information, academic records, financial aid, billing, and payment with a continuous focus on academic and degree progress, financial wellness, student retention, and graduation rates.
- Advise on in-depth financial aid questions assuring adherence to all regulatory compliance concerning financial aid applications, financial aid eligibility, disbursement and refunds, cost of attendance budget components, different aid types, loan comparisons, special circumstances, and estimated family contributions for tuition and fees.
- As a certified Personal Financial Manager, this position will conduct one-on-one financial literacy and financial wellness counseling meetings for students and parents. Curriculum is developed and maintained regularly by this position to meet the changing needs of the economy. Student advising meetings are highly individualized and require on-going curriculum enhancements, pre-meeting research, and post-meeting follow-up.
- Monitor individual progress of students’ financial and academic components, and provide personalized plans or interventions to ensure students: budget appropriately, maintain low levels of debt, and academically succeed to prevent impacts to financial aid, timely degree progress, and graduation.
- Interpret University, state, and federal policies and procedures and exercise professional judgment and authority to implement changes and make exceptions to policies without supervisory approval.
- Create collaborative success roadmaps with students to help them in their degree program in pursuit of timely graduation. Work collaboratively and partner with the college, academic unit, academic advisers, and the ASR Student Degree Progress team.
- Provide service to veterans, military service members, and their dependents to ensure that resources are available to them, as well as appropriate military benefits are being fully utilized.
- Assist with high-profile student cases that require collaborative outreach and communications with the President’s Office, University Relations, Government Relations, Office of the General Counsel, Behavioral Consultative Team, Disability Resource Center, Academic Health Center, and other collegiate and administrative entities by providing expertise, data, and advice.
Coaching and Leadership of Customer Relations Representatives (35%) - Serve as an accessible and knowledgeable coach and mentor for Customer Relations Representatives to assist with examining unusually complex situations.
- Serve in a managerial role for Customer Relations Representatives. This role includes recruitment, hiring, training, supervision, coaching, and evaluating (formally and informally).
- Provide mentoring, coaching, and leadership for Customer Relations Representatives.
- Analyze trends in student contact, make schedule alterations, and direct duties of Customer Relations Representatives as needed to adjust service levels.
- Provide counsel to the management team, interpreting business issues and providing leadership for change initiatives related to the staffing and operational processes.
- Strategically plan for current and future issues facing Customer Relations Representatives.
- Lead service expectation sessions and meetings with Customer Relations Representatives.
- Identify training issues and create solutions with new curriculum for refresher training.
- Strategic planning committee: Actively contribute to the strategic planning efforts.
Curricular and Program Development, Committees, and Community Outreach (20%) - Curriculum development leadership: Lead the curricular development for new staff and on-going training programs for all Customer Relations Representatives. This 4-6 week instructional program includes technical and operational instruction, student counseling methodologies and strategies, and customer service and standards to be experts working with the University’s diverse populations. Ensure the curriculum includes a strong student developmental approach for understanding the psychological, emotional, and social development of students in higher education. Ensure that appropriate assessment scenarios, learning outcomes, and role-playing activities are created as part of the approach to the curriculum and instruction. Instruct Customer Relations Representatives on any institutional, state, and federal regulatory, policy, or program changes. Collaborate with system campuses on the delivery of curriculum. Collaborate with other University staff (e.g., academic advisers, faculty) to create appropriate educational sessions and materials to ensure they are properly informed on enterprise-wide initiatives that impact students.
- Financial literacy program/curriculum development: Develop curriculum, advising standards, and learning outcomes for one-on-one financial literacy and financial wellness counseling sessions with students. Individually tailor advising appointments by preparing pre-session research, collaborating with the student on financial goals and objectives, and creating post-session follow-up to ensure student’s goals were met. Work with faculty to integrate our workshop curriculum into their course(s) and serve as the recognized expert in educating students on the importance of financial literacy. Develop programmatic enhancements to the Live Like A Student financial literacy/education program and other financial wellness initiatives including outreach strategies and communication tactics such as social media, digital signage, website, classroom presentations, and community engagement. Topics include budgeting, money and debt management, credit cards, identity theft and scams, loan repayment, credit reports and credit scores, and making smart personal spending decisions to better prepare students for life during and after their University experience. Work with faculty on integrating financial workshops into course lectures. Responsible for the development of grant funding ideas, as well full accountability for the grant writing and submission process. Student Supervisors/One Stop Counselors are required to obtain personal financial management certification in order to provide expert personal financial advice and counseling.
- High level University-wide initiatives: Provide leadership on various projects and initiatives that have One Stop and Academic Support Resources involvement. Examples include the PeopleSoft Upgrade, the new MyU Portal, and the Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system, which are large scale initiatives which have long-term impact to the operating practices for students, faculty, and staff across the University of Minnesota system. Provide input on decisions made during the creation and the long and short-term business objectives for One Stop Student Services including participating in and contributing ideas to our employee engagement projects, and our visioning process for the future direction of One Stop.
- Community Outreach: Expected to deliver high quality, professional public engagements and presentations that target critical student outcomes. Represent the University’s goals, programs, and policies in its recruiting, student success, retention and graduation efforts through outreach to students, parents, staff, faculty, and other University community members. This includes new student and parent orientation reaching over 10,000 individuals annually, as well as on/off-campus venues on nights and weekends for metropolitan high schools, under-represented groups, and other requested internal/external presentations such as Financial Aid Nights, Campus Preview Days, Admissions events, Welcome Week, GradFest, TRiO/Upward Bound, the Council of Undergraduate Deans, Associate Deans meeting, and the Academic Advising Network.
- Professional association involvement: Student Supervisors/One Stop Counselors contribute to professional associations in various ways through member, association committees, and conference presentations, workshops, and training. Professional association affiliations include: Institute for Student Services Professionals, Upper Midwest Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, and Minnesota Association of Financial Aid Administrators.
Appeals, Waivers, & Petitions (10%) The comprehensive analysis of individual appeal cases requires a high level of independent discretion and professional judgment to make critical decisions that directly impact student retention and success. Student Supervisors/One Stop Counselors also mentor other One Stop staff and Customer Relations Representative on unique appeals for students. Examples include, but are not limited to: - Tuition Refund Appeals: Analyze medical, mental health, death, academic mis-advisement, and other types of extenuating circumstances supported by documentation that corroborate a student’s request for a tuition refund after late withdrawal from a course(s). Analyze and research facts of the case from multiple angles including confidential documentation from students and supporting information from medical and academic professionals. Prepare a case to present to the committee after a thorough review of the financial aid, financial and health insurance claim impacts and information from other University offices. Exercise professional judgment to override University policy and procedures. Appropriately intervene and give future guidance to students. Work with the Office of General Counsel as appropriate on appeals that require legal expertise.
- Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) Appeals: SAP holds on students’ records are the result of a student’s poor academic performance. Individual SAP committee members review appeal forms and supporting documentation to determine if a student has experienced extenuating circumstances. The decisions of these appeals have significant impacts to student degree progress.
For each of the above-mentioned appeals as well as the many other kinds of tuition, financial aid, and registration appeals, waivers, or petitions, Student Supervisors must: - Exercise a high level of professionalism and independent discretion to override university policies.
- Accurately counsel students on the impact to their degree progress and financial matters based on the type of waiver, appeal or petition submitted.
- Collaborate cross-functionally when relevant information or supporting documentation is needed for proper appeal analysis.
- Evaluate and act on appeals, meeting deadlines established for each appeal.
- Review student eligibility for financial aid in accordance with all regulatory compliance based on current enrollment. One Stop Counselors must be adept to circumstances that could put the student in a worse financial situation if an appeal was approved.
- Analyze the financial aid award opportunities to determine what additional aid can be granted pending appeal approvals.
**This position offers the following benefits: - University paid contribution (10% of your salary) to your retirement account - vested immediately.
- 22 paid vacation days per year, in addition to paid medical leave and 11 paid holidays.
- Reduced tuition opportunities covering 75% - 100% of eligible tuition.
- Excellent and affordable health care benefits.
- Wellness program with the opportunity to earn lower health care rates.
- Free disability insurance.
- Free basic life insurance benefit (115% base salary, $200,000 maximum).
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