Program Assistant, Education Abroad

POSITION DESCRIPTION
The Program Assistant (PA) will support education abroad program activities and be a key link between Amideast Headquarters in Washington, DC and U.S. students, home institutions, and our field office staff members. The ideal person for this role may have studied, worked, or obtained extensive and substantive travel experience in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) or other regions of the Global South/Majority World and have a commitment to supporting opportunities for all young people of every background, interest, and aspiration to engage with the region’s diverse host communities. This position may be of particular interest to individuals who have a broad knowledge of the MENA.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Provide general program support to U.S. and field office staff
• Serve as a first point of contact for prospective program participants and/or advisers from their universities
• Conduct pre-departure webinars with participants admitted to programs; maintain and assist in regular, informed updating of pre-departure courses—their design, content, and delivery–in Amideast’s Moodle-based LMS
• Manage submission of grades, grade reports, and transcripts, including maintaining communication with our School of Record on these matters
• Update Education Abroad’s Terra Dotta application and pre-departure systems and materials for all programs
• Maintain scholarship databases, monitor all scholarship requirements, be the first point of contact for Blog Abroad correspondents, and manage scholarship winners’ requirements for content submission
• Screen student applications against the criteria and process student admissions as well as track application statistics, including comparative data; monitor applications and accepted participants’ requirements of submitted materials, communicate with applicants and accepted participants regarding deadlines and missing materials
• Maintain master list of campus visits, research study abroad fairs, budget for trips, set up meetings, assess impact of the visits and contribute to the development of long-term marketing strategy
• Represent Amideast at higher education abroad fairs and in meetings with campus-based education abroad staff and faculty in Arabic and Middle East/North African studies
• Manage social media presence, including maintaining the YouTube account, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, Instagram, and Localized pages as well as our collaborative blog, the semi-annual photo contest, and Mailchimp subscriber database
• Provide extensive in-person support to onsite departure and re-entry orientations for U.S. State Department Youth Programs for high school participants
• Be responsible for regular rotations of a 24/7 emergency phone
• Perform other tasks as requested