Data Strategist

City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), the largest community college system in Illinois, is made up of seven colleges, providing more than 70,000 students each year access to a quality, affordable education.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE

Reporting to the District Director-Strategic Analytics, the Data Strategist works to institutionalize a continuous improvement and performance-based culture at City Colleges of Chicago, and to ensure fact-based accountability at program, employee, and system-levels.  Supports the District Office and colleges in their use of data to inform strategy by providing data analysis, monitoring metrics from various data sources, and tracking of leading performance indicators. 

The Data Strategist works with District Office leadership to translate district-wide initiatives and KPI performance into institutional improvement; and works with college leadership to use district-wide data and initiatives to improve student supports and increase achievement, with the specific goal of closing the equity gaps in the CCC’s Four-Year Outcome Measure by 2032.  Performs related duties as required.  

ESSENTIAL DUTIES

Data and Analytic Support

·       Conducts strategic data analyses, identifies insights and implications from institutional data, and makes recommendations for action to executive and senior staff to improve student achievement. Analyses range from basic summary descriptive tables to more complex modelling, including regression.

·       Develops data dashboards and visualizations in PowerPoint, Excel and Tableau that clearly communicate complex analyses to multiple audiences, including executive and senior staff to inform institutional improvement efforts related to the strategic plan.

·       Provides reports to and facilitates conversations with departments across the District to monitor progress towards key performance indicators, such as reporting and analysis of admissions trends.  

·       Responds to ad hoc data request from CCC staff and external stakeholders regarding student and college performance using CCC’s data warehouse (Open Book); requests range from student -level data for outreach to evaluations of new programs launched at CCC.

·       Provides data validation for external compliance reporting and external research projects as needed.  Confirms enrollment numbers reporting to the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) align with enrollment in CCC’s data warehouse.

Institutional Data Capacity

·       Assists college and District staff across departments to access timely and accurate data by creating reports in PowerPoint, Excel, Tableau or CCC’s data warehouse.

·       Leads training to improve data literacy and the use of CCC data tools and/or reports to inform practice and strategy.  Training may range from how to use the data warehouse to using Excel to manipulate student-level data.

·       Supports the implementation, maintenance, and adoption of CCC business intelligence tools (e.g. data warehouse, Tableau) in collaboration with the Office of Information Technology (OIT).

·       Performs related duties as required.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS

Reports To                       District Director-Strategic Analytics

Direct Supervision          None

QUALIFICATIONS

·       A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in a quantitative discipline such as statistics, business, mathematics, economics, public policy, social sciences; or a related field of study. Master’s degree is preferred.

·       Three years of relevant experience in research or data analysis, with demonstrated experience in quantitative and qualitative research methods and statistics

·       A combination of education and experience may be taken into consideration based on the applicant’s credentials provided the minimum degree requirement is met

·       High level of proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

·       Experience with SQL programming or data querying preferred

·       Experience with Power BI, Tableau, or other data visualization tools preferred

·       Experience with statistical analysis software (e.g., SAS, R, STATA) highly preferred

·       Experience in quantitative statistical analysis highly desirable

·       Excellent project planning and management skills.   

·       Strong communication skills. 

·       Ability to work within a culturally diverse environment.  

·       Ability to cultivate and maintain strategic partnerships with key stakeholders. 

WE OFFER: Excellent health and welfare benefit package and long-term savings and investment programs including 403(b) & 457(b) Investment Plans and a pension plan with the State University Retirement System (SURS) Plan. Generous vacation, holiday, personal and sick days, and tuition reimbursement. For a more detailed overview of benefits, please visit the benefits page of our website.

We are an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. Chicago residency is required for all full-time employees within 6 months of hire. Thank you for your interest in CCC!