Job Description – Assistant Director, Clements Center for Southwest studies (HR Title: Program Manager) (DED00000445)
Job Description
Assistant Director, Clements Center for Southwest studies (HR Title: Program Manager)–(DED00000445)
Description
Salary Range:
Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications
About SMU
SMU’s more than 12,000 diverse, high-achieving students come from all 50 states and over 80 countries to take advantage of the University’s small classes, meaningful research opportunities, leadership development, community service, international study and innovative programs.
SMU is data driven, and its powerful supercomputing ecosystem – paired with entrepreneurial drive – creates an unrivaled environment for the University to deliver research excellence.
Now in its second century of achievement, SMU is recognized for the ways it supports students, faculty and alumni as they become ethical, enterprising leaders in their professions and communities.SMU’s relationship with Dallas– the dynamic center of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions – offers unique learning, research, social and career opportunities that provide a launch pad for global impact.
SMU is nonsectarian in its teaching and committed to academic freedom and open inquiry.
About the Department:
The Clements Center promotes research, publishing, teaching, and public programming in a variety of fields of inquiry related to Texas, the American Southwest, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
About the Position:
This role is an on-campus, in-person position.
The Assistant Director (AD) carries out the mission of the Center to promote research, publishing, teaching, and public programming in a variety of fields of inquiry related to Texas, the American Southwest, and the U.S.- Mexico borderlands. As the Center’s only staff member, the AD is charged with significant responsibility, a high degree of autonomy, and wide latitude to exercise independent decision-making authority. The AD is required to make sound financial decisions, write and edit copy, plan and manage events, manage diverse groups of people, advise residential fellows, and generally maintain excellent organization. The position also requires working knowledge of the academy and university publishing, and an intellectual curiosity for and engagement with the Center’s work, including the ability to recognize broad trends in the academic fields within the Center’s purview.
Essential Functions:
FELLOWS – The Center’s largest budget items are its annual residential fellowships. The Program Manager participates in the selection of fellows, makes appropriate financial arrangements with fellows’ home institutions, manages their onboarding, meets with them regularly while in residence, provides financial and other forms of support, and assists them in building their professional networks in the academic and publishing communities.
FINANCIAL – The Program Manager has authority over the Center’s 20 accounts, manages and spends funds, and creates the budget. They approve fellows’ travel and research expenses and oversee endowments and grants, including the creation of annual endowment reports. They work with the Development office to secure additional funding and manage cost-sharing arrangements with other institutions.
SYMPOSIA – The Center sponsors one or more annual symposia with an outside institutional partner, resulting in a book published by an academic press. The Program Manager works with the co-conveners to execute their vision, usually over about a 5-year period, until the book is published. This involves organizing and attending a multi-day workshop for 20+ academics, often held at the Taos campus.
TRAVEL TO CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, AND SYMPOSIA – The Program Manager must attend academic conferences to promote the work of the Center to interested academics, and host Center receptions and gatherings at these conferences. They attend and participate in all fellow’s manuscript workshops, and all symposia co-sponsored by the Center at other universities or institutions nationwide (and internationally).
PUBLIC RELATIONS – The Program Manager is solely responsible for gathering information to create, write and edit the Center’s annual newsletter. They are responsible for the Center website, including writing its content. They keep a presence on social media and design promotional material such as fliers, posters and mailers. They work with SMU Public Affairs and other off campus organizations to promote event, keep contact lists updated, and do other PR activities.
RESEARCH TRAVEL GRANTS – The Clements Center awards money to SMU graduate students to conduct dissertation research on subjects grounded in the Southwest. The Clements Center also awards money to outside scholars to come to SMU to conduct research for their own work in SMU’s DeGolyer Library. The Program Manager seeks applications for both of these, helps choose the awardees, and supports them academically and financially.
PUBLICATIONS – The program manager works with academic press editors and the individual fellows to secure book contracts and financial subventions for fellows’ books. The Center also self-publishes books on topics within its mandate. The Program Manager helps select authors and assists them in preparing book manuscripts, secures permissions, ISBNs, etc. They work with printers/editors, seek endorsements, see the book to final publication, and oversee sales.
ANNUAL BOOK PRIZE – The Clements Center awards an annual book prize for the best book on Southwestern America published the year before. The Program Manager seeks submissions from academic presses, works with the outside (non-SMU) judging committee and the Western History Association concerning the judging process, then plans, budgets, and promotes an evening lecture event for the winner.
PUBLIC PROGRAMMING – Each year the Clements Center hosts monthly noon talks and at least two evening lectures per semester. The program manager assists in securing speakers and making arrangements, writes and designs promotional materials, plans and budgets the event, and attends all functions.
NETWORKING – The Program Manager keeps in regular contact with more than 120 former fellows and all graduates of SMU’s history PhD program, tracking their academic achievements and institutional affiliations worldwide. They introduce fellows to faculty within SMU and the greater DFW area and make connections at academic conferences and workshops to promote SMU fellows and graduates and the work of the Center.
Qualifications
Education and Experience:
A bachelor’s degree in history (or an adjacent discipline) is required.
A minimum of two (2) years of experience is required. Experience in event and budget planning is required.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Candidate must demonstrate strong interpersonal and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate broadly across the University and develop and maintain effective relationships with a wide range of constituencies. Must also demonstrate strong written communication skills.
Candidate must possess strong problem-solving skills with the ability to identify and analyze problems, as well as devise solutions. Must also have strong organizational, planning and time management skills.
Ability to create/write/edit content for newsletter, website and promotional materials is essential.
Candidate ability to create/write/edit content for newsletter, website and promotional materials is essential.
Candidate must be able to work well with academics from numerous liberal arts disciplines from around the country and world.
Candidate ability to speak Spanish is a plus.
An interest in and capacity to teach occasional courses in Southwest and/or borderlands history is also preferred.
Physical and Environmental Demands:
Sit for long periods of time
Kneel, stand
Walk for long distances
Deadline to Apply:
October 26, 2025
Priority consideration may be given to those submissions received by October 15, 2025.
EEO Statement:
SMU will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. The Executive Director for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu.edu.
Benefits:
SMU offers staff a broad, competitive array of health and related benefits. In addition to traditional benefits such as health, dental, and vision plans, SMU offers a wide range of wellness programs to help attract, support, and retain our employees whose work continues to make SMU an outstanding education and research institution.
SMU is committed to providing an array of retirement programs that benefit and protect you and your family throughout your working years at SMU and, if you meet SMU’s retirement eligibility criteria, during your retirement years after you leave SMU.
