Associate Vice President Associate Vice Provost for Community- Engaged Scholarship, DCA

Duke University seeks a strategic and visionary leader to serve as its Associate Vice President/Associate Vice Provost for Community-Engaged Scholarship. Reporting to the Vice President for Community Affairs and the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, and in partnership with the Faculty Director, the AVP will launch the Duke Center for Community Engagement. Building upon Duke’s legacy of commitment to research and the regional community, the AVP will identify and cultivate ongoing partnerships to amplify the strategic goals and mission of the DCA. The AVP will provide strategic leadership for key DCA community programs that connect Duke students and recent graduates directly to educational initiatives.

ABOUT DUKE UNIVERSITY

Tracing its origins to 1838, Duke University has evolved into one of the world's leading institutions for education, research, and patient care. Located in Durham, North Carolina, in the heart of the Research Triangle, Duke is comprised of two major organizations: Duke University and Duke University Health System. Duke has been named as a best place to work by several publications and organizations, including Forbes and Newsweek, among others. Duke has more than 17,000 students who study and conduct research in its 10 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, as well as a broad array of interdisciplinary institutes, initiatives, and centers. With more than 47,000 employees, Duke is the third largest private employer in North Carolina, and it now has international programs in more than 150 countries.

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

Durham is a colorful and creative community that continuously earns accolades as one of the best places in the U.S. to visit, live, and do business. It is one of three municipalities – along with Raleigh, the state capital and home to North Carolina State University, and Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina – that form the Research Triangle, known worldwide for its outstanding research universities, innovative technologies, and entrepreneurial spirit. Durham also boasts a wealth of natural beauty; has more than 550 restaurants; hosts performances, festivals, and sporting events year-round, and two other excellent institutions of higher education – North Carolina Central University and Durham Technical Community College. North Carolina’s beautiful beaches are a few hours to the east, while the rugged mountains to the west are popular for hiking, fishing, boating, and skiing. In addition, Durham is only a short flight and reasonable driving distance from New York, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, GA, giving the Duke community access to a wealth of cultural and professional resources.

DUKE COMMUNITY AFFAIRS

Duke Community Affairs forges purposeful partnerships within its neighboring region to improve health and well-being in the community. DCA launched its first Strategic Community Impact Plan to bring together community voices and Duke’s resources to create a community engagement strategy that maximizes impact and improves wellbeing. With Durham as a major hub of Duke’s work, the plan has identified five community-driven focus areas and associated priorities to guide their engagement efforts, including housing, early childhood nutrition and health, educational opportunity, economic mobility, and non-profit capacity.

DCA leads several community-based programs, including the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, a collaborative open to 14 neighborhood associations close to Duke’s campus that advances community priorities, with particular attention to affordable homeownership, educational achievement, youth outreach, neighborhood safety, and quality health care. The Duke College Advising Corps works to increase the number of low-income, first-generation and underrepresented high school students in rural North Carolina who enter and complete higher education. The Duke Homebuyers Club is a free resource that connects Duke employees and their family members with financial literacy, one-on-one counseling, and homebuyer resources to prepare them for first-time or renewed home ownership.

In 2022, through community grants, Duke University and DUHS contributed more than $2 million in community funds. A substantial portion of these funds was contributed by Duke employees through the Doing Good employee giving program, while other funds were disbursed through a grant application process administered through the Office of Community Health, which reports jointly to DCA and DUHS. Separately, DUHS contributed $141 million in financial assistance, serving 267,907 residents needing healthcare services.

LEADERSHIP

President Vincent Price

Vincent Price is the 10th President of Duke University, where he is also Walter Hines Page Professor of Public Policy and Political Science in the Sanford School of Public Policy and Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. A leading global expert on public opinion, social influence, and political communication, President Price came to Duke in 2017 and has since developed Toward our Second Century, a comprehensive strategic framework based on five core principles: empowering people, transforming education, building community, forging partnerships, and engaging Duke’s global alumni network.

Provost Alec D. Gallimore

Alec D. Gallimore is the Provost and Chief Academic Officer of Duke University. Before his recent appointment at Duke (2023), Dr. Gallimore held multiple leadership roles over his 30+ year career at the University of Michigan, including the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, and associate dean at the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies. Dr. Gallimore is a leader in the field of advanced spacecraft propulsion and founded a laboratory at the University of Michigan that is developing the plasma drive system that may ultimately propel humans to Mars. His work has been recognized by lifetime achievement awards such as the Wyld Propulsion Award from the AIAA, the Ernst Stuhlinger Medal from the Electric Rocket Society, and induction into the National Academy of Engineering.

Vice President for Duke Community Affairs Stelfanie Williams

As vice president for Duke Community Affairs, Stelfanie Williams guides Duke’s engagement efforts to advance the well-being of communities through education, health, housing, employment, and other community partnerships including coordination with residents, leaders, local government, anchor institutions, nonprofits, campus members and other stakeholders.

Previously, Williams was president of Vance-Granville Community College (VGCC) and in 2018 was named President of the Year by the North Carolina State Board of Community Colleges. Williams has served in administration and on faculty at other institutions with a current adjunct assistant professor appointment in the College of Education at NC State University. In addition, Williams has engaged in state and national initiatives including appointments to the Governor’s Commission on a Sound, Basic Education, the American Association of Community Colleges’ Commission on Structured Pathways, and the myFutureNC Commission focused on educational attainment and has consulted for organizations including The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, the Thomas Lakin Institute, and the American Council on Education. Williams also is a corporate director for the State Employees’ Credit Union, the second largest credit union in the country, and for NC IDEA, a private foundation focused on advancing entrepreneurship in NC. Williams serves on the boards of several local nonprofit organizations.

Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies Edward Balleisen

Vice Provost Edward Balleisen has served as Duke’s vice provost for interdisciplinary studies since 2015. In this capacity, Balleisen works with university-wide institutes and initiatives and each of Duke’s ten schools to foster collaborative, interdisciplinary research, teaching and engagement. He also oversees Bass Connections, an innovative program that each year catalyzes dozens of interdisciplinary, problem-centered research teams involving faculty, graduate students and undergraduates. A national leader in conversations about the need to reconfigure doctoral training to foster intellectual versatility and career diversity, Balleisen was the lead co-PI on Duke’s Versatile Humanists project, funded by a Next Generation Implementation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

As a professor of history and public policy, Balleisen’s research and writing explores the historical intersections among law, business, politics and policy in the modern United States, with a growing focus on the origins, evolution and impacts of the modern regulatory state. He has pursued a number of collaborative projects with historians and other social scientists who study regulatory governance in industrialized and industrializing societies.

THE ROLE OF THE ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT/ASSOCIATE VICE PROVOST, COMMUNITY-ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP

The Associate Vice President/Associate Vice Provost (AVP) will take on a vital strategic leadership role in advancing community-engaged scholarship and integrating academic undertakings to forge and sustain purposeful partnerships with communities. Housed within Duke Community Affairs (DCA) and reporting jointly to the Vice President for Community Affairs and the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, the AVP, along with the Faculty Director, will launch the Duke Center for Community Engagement and facilitate greater coordination of engaged education and research across the university.

The Center for Community Engagement is a new Center, established on the foundations of DCA in conjunction with the Office of the Provost, that will launch in Fall 2024. A Duke University Board of Trustees task force and a faculty and staff working group have developed key priorities for the Center. The AVP will be responsible for implementing these plans by aligning resources, developing relationships, and integrating the Center into the fabric of the university. Additionally, the AVP will guide educational outreach programs spanning pre-k, K-12, and college-readiness in Durham and beyond.

The AVP will also provide strategic direction to DCA’s educational outreach programs, working to advance collaborations with public schools, addressing issues such as early literacy and student engagement. The programs run by the education team include Jumpstart, a national early education program, America Reads/America Counts (ARAC) which houses over 400 tutors working in Durham’s public schools and the College Advising Corps (CAC), which strives to increase the number of low-income, first-generation college and underrepresented students in rural North Carolina.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The primary responsibilities of the Associate Vice President/Associate Vice Provost, Community-Engaged Scholarship will include:

Launch and lead the Duke Center for Community Engagement:

• The AVP will work collaboratively with the Vice President for Community Affairs, the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Center Faculty Director and staff, and a university-wide steering committee, identify a flexible organizational structure for the new Center, premised on partnership with the network of community-engaged scholars across campus and associated resources in schools and other units. Through collaborative leadership, the AVP will build the capacity of the Center, including human, financial, and intellectual resources; monitor and manage resources; and plan, execute, and evaluate programming and services.

· With the Center Faculty Director and Senior Director of Community Engagement and steering committee, the AVP will facilitate coordination of community-engaged scholarship, select community service programs, and related activities across the university and health system, among students, faculty, and staff.

· The AVP will support the Center Faculty Director in their efforts to integrate experiential learning, co-curricular, and interdisciplinary activities across Duke for community benefit, with particular emphasis on community-defined focal areas and priorities. The AVP will become knowledgeable about existing curricular and co-curricular programs and leverage these programs to coordinate opportunities for students.

· In collaboration with the DCA’s Office of Research and Advancement and Duke Development, the AVP will raise funds for long-term sustainability of programs and projects facilitated and administered through the Center.

Foster connections between campus and communities:

· The AVP will champion Duke’s role as an anchor institution and cultivate and sustain partnerships between scholars at Duke and local community organizations, with a particular emphasis on Durham and environs, prioritizing community focal areas and mutual benefit between Duke and its partners. They will develop a deep knowledge of community-engaged curricular and extra-curricular programs and lead the implementation of the education and community engagement priorities outlined in the Strategic Community Impact Plan (SCIP) and foster understanding of those priorities with key internal and external constituencies.

· The AVP will seek resources to fund research grants for Duke faculty and students, as well as student internships, targeted at community focal areas and premised on sustainable partnerships for community benefit.

· As a colleague, the AVP will support the Faculty Director in their efforts to extend Duke’s capacity to meet community needs and achieve community benefits by fostering connections in the region and across the campus, linking community organizations to Duke’s faculty and student researchers.

· The AVP will further partner with the Faculty Director to serve as a key liaison to Duke research entities regarding engagement activities, including but not limited to Office of Research & Innovation, Office of Institutional Research, and Community Affairs Office of Research & Advancement, with a focus on the development of appropriate policies to facilitate equitable community-engaged research, and the strategic collection and analysis of relevant data.

Advance Duke as a leader in community engagement:

· The AVP will serve as an active participant in the Duke community, and will inform university policies related to community engagement and partnerships and serve as strategic advisor to leadership teams within Duke Community Affairs and the Office of the Provost/Office of Interdisciplinary Studies.

· As appropriate, the AVP will participate in engaged scholarship, models of innovation, and national conversations about community-engaged research and teaching, maintaining currency in the field of community-engaged scholarship and producing presentations and publications.

Advance and strengthen educational outreach partnerships:

· The AVP will work closely with the Senior Director of Educational Outreach to provide high-level strategic direction to relevant programs, including America Counts/America Reads, Jumpstart, College Advising Corps, and others that connect Duke students and graduates to educational partner organizations. Day-to-day operational oversight of these programs, which allow underrepresented learners to achieve academic excellence and Duke students to serve North Carolina communities, is provided by the Senior Director of Education.

· The AVP will connect faculty, staff and students at Duke with education partners such as the public school system, after-school programs and summer learning programs, and will partner with the Senior Director to help convene and support education partners at Duke and in communities through strategic councils, advisory boards and other strategic groups.

REQUIREMENTS AND DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

The AVP will be joining DCA during a pivotal time in its ongoing commitment to support the region through intentional partnerships with the academic and local communities. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience in: establishing and sustaining equitable partnerships between an institution of higher education and community organizations; and navigating complex environments in a university setting, preferably through leadership of a community engagement center. We are looking for a collaborative leader with a proven track record of building trust, inspiring faculty, staff, and students, and contributing to the national dialogue about co-created, community-engaged scholarship.

The Associate Vice Provost, Community-Engaged Scholarship will possess the following skills, experience, and competencies:

• At least ten years of progressive leadership experience in community-based work, with demonstrated effectiveness in contexts such as building/sustaining community partnerships, developing curricular innovations, and fostering collaborative teams.
• Grounding in community research in academic settings, generally acquired through completion of a PhD program or other equivalent training.
• Extensive background and track record of excellence in community engagement.
• Preferably, experience running a community engagement center in a university setting.
• Preferably, experience teaching in university settings.
• National thought leadership in community engagement.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

This is a full-time position, located in Durham, North Carolina. The compensation will be commensurate with experience and is enhanced by a generous benefits package. Duke University offers a variety of extensive benefits and perks to employees of all classifications.

PROCEDURES FOR CANDIDATES

Candidate review will begin immediately. To apply for this role please submit a letter of interest and resume through the application link. Nominations and inquiries can be directed to: DukeAVPScholarship@storbecksearch.com.

Work requires a grounding in community research in academic settings, generally acquired through completion of a PhD program or other equivalent training.

Work requires at least ten years of progressive leadership experience in community-based work, with demonstrated effectiveness in contexts such as building/sustaining community partnerships, developing curricular innovations, and fostering collaborative teams.

Duke is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Duke aspires to create a community built on collaboration, innovation, creativity, and belonging. Our collective success depends on the robust exchange of ideas—an exchange that is best when the rich diversity of our perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences flourishes. To achieve this exchange, it is essential that all members of the community feel secure and welcome, that the contributions of all individuals are respected, and that all voices are heard. All members of our community have a responsibility to uphold these values.

Essential Physical Job Functions: Certain jobs at Duke University and Duke University Health System may include essentialjob functions that require specific physical and/or mental abilities. Additional information and provision for requests for reasonable accommodation will be provided by each hiring department.