OMAI Associate Director

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Job Category:

Employment Type:

Job Profile:

Job Summary:

The OMAI Associate Director (AD) is a creative team leader who has expertise in undergraduate student success frameworks as well as advising and mentorship for youth and young adults of diverse identities at a national level. The AD is generally responsible for the execution of OMAI programming First Wave scholarship administration and recruitment strategies and managing staff and campus partnerships. They are a multi-hyphenate creative in their own right with a diverse skill set in team and project management national recruitment efforts public speaking student advising/mentorship and curriculum design and creating cultivating and executing multicultural programming.

As the Associate Director of OMAI at UW-Madison the AD develops and evaluates programs and curriculum designed to promote student success and retention. They supervise staff and provide guidance to groups to foster a supportive institutional culture.

This position is full-time 100%.

Ongoing/Renewable

This position will be fully travel will be required. Some evening/weekend work is required in line with programming offered by program/unit.

Key Job Responsibilities:

• Assists in the development of strategy for the implementation and maintenance of scholarship activities to ensure appropriate use of resources to align with and accomplish recruitment and retention goals and meet donor intent
  

• Work with Academic Advisor and graduate mentors in monitoring and reporting student academic progress and scholarship requirements in order to ensure the persistence graduation and overall academic and personal success of First Wave Scholars

• Leads one or more major operations of the advising unit and plans and directs staff implementation of academic services related programs and other events

• Assists in the development of operating policies and procedures to comply with regulations institutional policies and unit objectives

• Maintains expertise with advised curriculum and may assist in developing and recommending exceptions for policy and curriculum

• Serves as a liaison to internal and external stakeholders to maintain campus partnerships

• Assists in the development of strategic planning initiatives to ensure appropriate use of financial administrative and staffing resources and alignment with the strategic plan

• Reviews and makes recommendations for exceptions to academic policies procedures and requirements for students

• Participates in the campus-wide advising community providing input to leadership regarding the development of advising recruitment and co/curricular programs offered by the school/college

• Exercises supervisory authority including hiring transferring suspending promoting managing conduct and performance discharging assigning rewarding disciplining and/or approving hours worked of at least 2.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees

Department:

Division for Teaching and Learning Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI)

The Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives within the Division for Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides culturally relevant and transformative arts programming to promote positive social dialogue and to give cultural art forms a legitimate academic forum. By harnessing the broad cultural influence of spoken word hip hop and emerging as well as traditional art forms OMAIs events and programming create learning environments that directly affect UW-Madisons campus climate improving retention and graduation metrics and preparing future leaders to reinvest in their communities. By continually refreshing this paradigm that integrates traditional academics and cutting-edge arts activism OMAI empowers transnational leaders with new tools for inclusive community building.

One of OMAIs most prominent initiatives is the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Scholarship Program a cutting-edge multicultural artistic program for incoming students which offers a four-year full tuition scholarship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bringing together young artists and leaders from across the United States and beyond First Wave offers students the opportunity to live study and create together in a close-knit dynamic campus community. First Wave is the first university program in the country to offer full tuition scholarships for urban arts spoken word and hip-hop culture.

Compensation:

The starting salary for the position is $71994 (but is negotiable based on experience and qualifications).

This position offers a comprehensive benefits package including generous paid time off competitively priced health/dental/vision/life insurance tax-advantaged savings accounts and participation in the nationally recognized Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) pension fund. Please review thesummary of benefitsfor more information.

Employees in this position can expect to receive benefits such as generous vacation holidays and sick leave; competitive insurances and savings accounts; retirement benefits. Please review thesummary of benefitsfor more information.

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of 2 years professional experience planning and executing educational programming (with strong preference for a focus in Hip Hop arts activism and college readiness)

• Proficiency in planning and implementing overall leadership vision and organizational cohesiveness

• Minimum of 2 years supervision and management experience working with full-time part-time or seasonal staff

• Experience in youth camps or programming college advising or direct student support services

• Knowledge and experience with budget management program planning and event execution

• Experience and familiarity with mentoring practices to create a healthy work environment to achieve strategic priorities

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strong skills relative to interpersonal communication and public speaking

• Experience coordinating leading or executing program assessment and/or evaluation

• Excellent problem-solving skills exercising initiative and creativity to enhance programming for undergraduate students

• Strong organizational skills with the ability to work independently and collaboratively

• Knowledge of and/or relationships with youth arts and activist nonprofit organizations academies and schools of the arts at a national or international level are highly desirable

Education:

Bachelors Degree Required; Focus in the field of education arts Hip Hop culture and/or civic engagement or related field preferred

How to Apply:

To begin the application process click the Apply button. Candidates will be required to upload a resume and cover letter. Please note when applying there will beonlyoneattachment field.You must uploadall your documents in the attachment field.

Please submit a cover letter referring to your related work experience and a resume detailing your educational and professional background no more than 2 pages long. As a part of this application please briefly respond to the following in your cover letter:

• Detail your experience working with and mentoring youthyoung adults in college readiness student retention and/or artistic development

• Describe your supervision experience

• Share experience coordinating leading or executing program assessment and/or evaluation

The application reviewers will be relying on your written application materials to determine which qualified applicants will advance in the recruitment process.

The deadline for assuring full consideration is Tuesday February 17th 2026 at 11:59 PM (CST).

Please note that successful applicants are responsible for ensuring their eligibility to work in the United States (i.e. a citizen or national of the United States a lawful permanent resident a foreign national authorized to work in the United States without need of employer sponsorship) on or before the effective date of appointment.

This position has been identified as a position of trust with access to vulnerable populations. The selected candidate will be required to pass an initial caregiver check to be eligible for employment under the Wisconsin Caregiver Law and then every two years.

Contact Information:

Emma Voight

Relay Access (WTRS): 7-1-1. SeeRELAYSERVICEfor further information.

Institutional Statement on Diversity:

Diversity is a source of strength creativity and innovation for UW-Madison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their identity culture background experience status abilities and opinion enrich the university community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching research outreach and diversity as inextricably linked goals.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background - people who as students faculty and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an Equal OpportunityEmployer.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to including but not limited to race color religion sex sexual orientation national origin age pregnancy disability or status as a protected veteran and other bases as defined by federal regulations and UW System policies. We promote excellence by acknowledging skills and expertise from all backgroundsand encourage all qualified individuals to apply. For more information regarding applicant and employee rights and to view federal and state required postings visit the Human Resources Workplace Poster website.

To request a disability or pregnancy-related accommodationfor any step in the hiring process (e.g. application interview pre-employment testing etc.) please contact the Divisional Disability Representative (DDR)in the division you are applying make your request as soon as possible to help the university respond most effectively to you.

Employment may require a criminal background check. It may also require your references to answer questions regarding misconduct including sexual violence and sexual harassment.

The University of Wisconsin System will not reveal the identities of applicants who request confidentiality in writing except that the identity of the successful candidate will be released. See Wis. Stat. sec. 19.36(7).

The Annual Security and Fire Safety Report contains current campus safety and disciplinary policies crime statistics for the previous 3 calendar years and on-campus student housing fire safety policies and fire statistics for the previous 3 calendar years. UW-Madison will provide a paper copy upon request; please contact the University of Wisconsin Police Department.