Executive Assistant to the VP for Advancement

MARYVILLE COLLEGE STAFF POSITION DESCRIPTION

Position Title: Executive Assistant to the VP for Advancement

Department: Advancement

Title of Immediate Supervisor: Vice President for Advancement

Funded Term / Work Cycle: 12 months

Expected Daily Work Hours: 8 hours

Expected Weekly Work Schedule: 40 hours; occasional evening and weekend work may be required

Pay Grade: 7S

Starting Salary Expectations: $47,721.53 - $52,493.68 with starting salary determined based on relevant experience, qualifications, and demonstrated competencies.

About Maryville College:

Maryville College is a nationally ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years, we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders to study everything so that they are prepared for anything. Our graduates are equipped to address complex problems, engage with diverse communities, and launch meaningful careers.

Nestled in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, our campus combines the beauty of a rural setting with the advantages of an urban center. With a wide range of academic programs and a strong tradition of career preparation, our alumni live “strong of mind and brave of heart,” carrying forward our Presbyterian founder’s charge to do good on the largest possible scale.

Mission

At Maryville College, we offer more than a mission—we offer support. Our employees receive a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage; a generous paid time off program; a retirement plan with an employer match of up to 5%; tuition benefits for employees, spouses, and dependents; and the opportunity to grow in a collaborative community that values professional excellence and personal well-being.

“Maryville College prepares students for lives of citizenship and leadership as we challenge each one to search for truth, grow in wisdom, work for justice and dedicate a life of creativity and service to the peoples of the world.”

Values:

• Scholarship: We commit ourselves to lifelong curiosity and learning, to the search for knowledge, and to intellectual creativity.
• Respect: We commit ourselves to honor the worth, dignity, and freedom of ourselves and all creation, and to treat others as we wish to be treated.
• Integrity: We commit ourselves to truth, honesty, dependability, and responsibility in all our actions and relationships.

Position Purpose

The Executive Assistant to Advancement provides high-level, proactive administrative and operational support to the Vice President for Advancement. The position maximizes executive effectiveness through sophisticated calendar and meeting management, budget monitoring and reporting, project coordination, communication, preparation of executive materials, and consistent follow-through on institutional priorities.

The Executive Assistant is expected to anticipate needs, identify deadlines and emerging issues, independently resolve routine matters, and ensure commitments and next steps move forward without continual direction from executive leadership. The position serves as a trusted partner who creates capacity for senior leaders to focus on fundraising, donor relationships, institutional strategy, external partnerships, and leadership of their respective operations.

SUMMARY

This position requires a highly organized, resourceful, and forward-thinking professional who can manage competing priorities across Advancement while maintaining discretion, accuracy, and exceptional service. The Assistant moves beyond task completion to understand desired outcomes, anticipate next steps, identify barriers, and independently advance work toward completion.

Education and Experience required to ensure success in this position:

Education required to ensure success in this position: Bachelor's degree preferred; an equivalent combination of education and relevant executive-level administrative experience may be considered.

Experience required to ensure success in this position: Three to five years of progressively responsible administrative, executive support, office management, budget coordination, project management, or related experience. Experience supporting senior executives in higher education, nonprofit, arts, fundraising, or similarly complex organizations preferred.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

Leadership and Collaboration:

• Serve as a trusted operational partner to the Vice President, anticipating needs and helping organize executive priorities across Advancement.

• Manage the Vice President's calendar strategically, prioritizing donor, prospect, institutional, staff, and external-partner appointments while protecting time for high-value strategic work.

• Coordinate meetings from scheduling through completion, including agendas, briefing materials, logistics, notes or action items as appropriate, and timely follow-up.

• Proactively identify scheduling conflicts, deadlines, missing information, and unresolved action items and recommend solutions before they become barriers.

• Coordinate closely with the Assistant Vice President, Advancement directors, President's Office, Cabinet offices, trustees, donors, and external partners.

• Exercise sound judgment regarding matters that can be resolved independently, matters requiring executive attention, and matters that should be delegated to other staff.

Data, Technology, and Compliance

• Maintain organized and accurate executive files, records, calendars, meeting materials, budget documentation, contracts, and other administrative records.

• Use College systems and productivity tools effectively to manage calendars, documents, spreadsheets, budgets, purchasing, travel, and project tracking.

• Develop and maintain practical tracking tools for executive priorities, deadlines, approvals, follow-up items, contracts, purchase orders, invoices, and recurring responsibilities.

• Handle confidential donor, personnel, financial, and institutional information with discretion and in accordance with College policy.

• Support accurate information flow between Advancement, Finance, Human Resources, the President's Office, and other campus units.

Stakeholder and Institutional Support

• Coordinate donor and prospect appointments for the Vice President, including scheduling, location, travel logistics, internal participants, briefing materials, and follow-up.

• Provide professional and responsive communication with donors, trustees, community partners, artists, sponsors, vendors, campus leaders, and other constituents on behalf of executive leadership.

• Assist with preparation of correspondence, presentations, reports, meeting materials, board or committee materials, donor briefings, and other executive communications.

• Support appropriate Advancement meetings, donor activities, leadership gatherings, and special projects without becoming the primary event-planning function for either division.

• Serve as a knowledgeable point of coordination for individuals seeking time, information, decisions, or follow-up from the Vice President.

Operations and Technical Oversight

• Provide proactive day-to-day administrative coordination that reduces the volume of routine scheduling, follow-up, document preparation, and operational tasks requiring direct executive involvement.

• Maintain an executive action-item system that tracks commitments, responsible parties, deadlines, and completion status and follows up independently when deliverables are outstanding.

• Coordinate travel arrangements, itineraries, expense documentation, meeting preparation, and related logistics.

• Prepare recurring administrative and operational reports and identify items requiring executive decision or intervention.

• Coordinate purchasing, contracts, invoices, purchase orders, subscriptions, vendor documentation, and other administrative workflows as assigned.

• Develop efficient office procedures and recommend improvements that reduce duplication, missed deadlines, and unnecessary executive involvement.

Fiscal Oversight

• Maintain current budget-to-actual reporting for assigned Advancement budgets and provide clear, concise recurring financial summaries to leadership.

• Monitor expenditures, available balances, encumbrances, purchase orders, invoices, contracts, and anticipated expenses and proactively identify variances, potential overages, or items requiring reallocation.

• Reconcile internal budget tracking with College financial information and work with Finance to investigate discrepancies.

• Prepare monthly budget snapshots that clearly communicate current position, notable variances, upcoming commitments, and items requiring executive action.

• Assist leadership with annual budget development, forecasting, year-end closeout, and preparation of supporting documentation.

• Maintain organized financial records and ensure purchasing and payment processes move forward in a timely manner.

Strategic Planning and Sustainability

• Maintain a master calendar of recurring Advancement deadlines, reporting cycles, board and committee meetings, donor activities, budget milestones, performance processes, and major institutional commitments.

• Help translate executive priorities into actionable work plans, timelines, meeting schedules, and follow-up systems.

• Anticipate upcoming needs by reviewing calendars, budgets, projects, and deadlines and preparing information or initiating routine next steps in advance.

• Identify opportunities to streamline executive workflows and improve coordination between Advancement and campus partners.

• Demonstrate a goals-oriented approach by understanding the intended outcome of assignments, anticipating subsequent steps, identifying barriers, and independently moving work toward completion.

• Regularly assess whether administrative processes are creating meaningful capacity for the Vice President and recommend adjustments when they are not.

First-Year Priorities

• Establish an executive calendar-management system that prioritizes donor and strategic work, reduces avoidable scheduling conflicts, and improves meeting preparation and follow-through.

• Develop standardized monthly budget-to-actual reports for assigned Advancement budgets, including variances, commitments, forecasts, and action items.

• Create a centralized executive action-item and deadline tracker for major projects, approvals, meetings, contracts, and recurring responsibilities.

• Establish clear workflows and service expectations for the shared Advancement support model, including priority-setting and escalation protocols.

• Review recurring administrative processes and recommend efficiencies that measurably reduce executive time spent on scheduling, routine follow-up, purchasing, document preparation, and information gathering.

• Develop consistent meeting-preparation practices so executive meetings requiring decisions or donor engagement are supported with appropriate materials in advance.

Key Performance Expectations

• Maintain accurate, strategically managed executive calendars with minimal avoidable conflicts and timely scheduling of priority donor, prospect, staff, and institutional appointments.

• Provide accurate monthly budget reports on an established schedule and proactively identify significant variances, overages, outstanding commitments, or discrepancies.

• Ensure executive meetings requiring preparation have appropriate materials, logistics, and relevant information available in advance according to established standards.

• Maintain reliable follow-through on executive action items, with responsible parties and deadlines tracked and overdue items proactively addressed.

• Demonstrate increasing independence in resolving routine administrative and operational matters without unnecessary escalation to the Vice President.

• Reduce administrative burden on executive leadership by assuming ownership of recurring scheduling, budget tracking, follow-up, purchasing, travel, and coordination functions.

• Consistently demonstrate proactive behavior by anticipating next steps and bringing recommended solutions, not only problems or requests for direction.

• Maintain high standards of accuracy, discretion, responsiveness, professionalism, and constituent service.

Other:

• Perform other responsibilities and special projects as assigned to advance the College's mission and maintain a respectful, collaborative learning environment.

NOTE: Other roles/duties will be assigned as necessary to assist the College in the attainment of the goals set forth and the enhancement of a positive, respectful learning environment for all staff, faculty, and students.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Exceptional organizational, calendar-management, prioritization, and follow-through skills.

• Strong financial and numerical aptitude with demonstrated ability to monitor budgets, interpret budget-to-actual information, identify variances, and prepare concise financial reports.

• Demonstrated ability to anticipate executive needs and independently advance work without waiting for detailed task-by-task direction.

• Ability to move from a task-oriented approach to a goals-oriented approach by understanding desired outcomes, anticipating next steps, identifying barriers, and independently advancing work toward completion.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and ability to interact professionally with donors, trustees, senior leaders, community partners, faculty, staff, vendors, and other constituents.

• Strong judgment, discretion, diplomacy, and ability to manage confidential or sensitive information.

• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office or comparable productivity tools, particularly Outlook/calendar systems, Excel/spreadsheets, Word, and presentation software.

• Ability to manage multiple priorities across two complex operating areas while maintaining clarity regarding deadlines, ownership, and executive priorities.

• Resourcefulness and problem-solving ability, including a demonstrated tendency to bring solutions and recommendations rather than simply identify problems.

• Strong service orientation combined with the confidence to appropriately manage access, competing requests, deadlines, and expectations on behalf of executive leadership.

License, Certification, or Registration Necessary:

No specific license or certification required. Valid Driver's license may be required for occasional College-related travel.

Work Environment and Physical Requirements:

Office-based position requiring prolonged periods Sitting at a desk and working on a computer; frequent movement between campus offices and facilities; occasional evening and weekend work associated with Advancement activities; ability to manage multiple interruptions and priorities in a fast-paced executive environment.

Must be able to lift/move up to 20 pounds.

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Ability to travel between campus buildings or off-campus locations as needed

Ability to operate the following vehicles or equipment: Standard office equipment, computer systems, spreadsheets, calendar and collaboration platforms, and other College administrative technology.