Associate Director, Initiative on Land and Housing Property Rights

Boston College Introduction

Founded in 1863, Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic university located six miles from downtown Boston with an enrollment of 9,445 full-time undergraduates and 5,125 graduate and professional students. Ranked 35 among national universities, Boston College has 878 full-time and 1,201 FTE faculty, 2,750 non-faculty employees, an operating budget of $1.2 billion, and an endowment in excess of $2.8 billion.

Job Description

The Associate Director for the Initiative on Land & Housing Property Rights (ILHPR) at Boston College will report to the Robert F. Drinan, S.J. Endowed Chair at Boston College Law School, who serves as the Director of the Initiative and in 2020 was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The Initiative seeks to address real property issues that impact disadvantaged communities. Much of the work the Initiative will undertake will assist communities that have been harmed as a result of lacking adequate land, housing, and other property rights. The Initiative has four main pillars. First, certain Institute programs and activities will be designed to train law students, other graduate and professional students, and undergraduate students to develop expertise in helping disadvantaged people and communities address their land, housing, and community development issues. This training will consist of both coursework and experiential learning opportunities. Second, the Initiative will seek to catalyze research on various land and housing issues that have been undervalued, understudied, and undertheorized in ways that have harmed disadvantaged communities in palpable ways. Third, the Initiative seeks to galvanize teams of expert stakeholders - from grassroots to so-called "grasstop" stakeholders - to work proactively to develop legal reform and policy solutions to address a diverse range of property problems disadvantaged communities experience. Fourth, the Initiative will sponsor both continuing education programs for lawyers and community legal education programs for disadvantaged communities to better enable people from disadvantaged communities to obtain more just outcomes in terms of the property-related issues they face. In a variety of ways implicating each of its four pillars, the Initiative will address so-called heirs' property issues, building upon the substantial heirs' property scholarly and legal reform and policy work the Initiative's Director has done to date. At the same time, the Initiative will address many other land and housing matters. Overall, the Initiative's goal is to inspire others, including but not limited to law students, to engage in educational and law and policy work to address land and housing issues that disadvantaged communities experience, communities that are disproportionately though not exclusively communities of color.

Duties include:

Program Development (20%)

• Assist the Director with the development of a comprehensive, three-year plan to establish a range of activities the ILHPR will seek to undertake to help realize its educational, law & policy, and service work;

• Conduct an assessment of the work other higher education and/or nonprofit organizations have been doing to resolve land and housing issues disadvantaged communities experience, particularly issues that have substantial legal components to them;

• Build collaborative relationships with various stakeholders at Boston College, including administrators, faculty, staff, and students both within and outside of the law school;

• Assist in building a list of external organizations and people that have an interest in the work the Initiative undertakes whether as supporters, attendees of Initiative events, or partners;

• In year one of the Initiative, help develop specific plans to advance the work to be done under each of the four pillars of the Initiative;

• Help seek external funding for the work of the Initiative and manage the funded work in an organized way, including by keeping the workflow on schedule; and

• Draft required reports

Student/Educational Component of Initiative (25%)

• Manage the student experiential and curricular learning component of the institute by:

• Managing the externship component of the Initiative for law students to enable them to get hands-on experience working on various land and housing issues disadvantaged communities face;

• Assisting with the generation of partners for potential externship/summer job placements for law students; and

• Meeting with various stakeholders to facilitate the ability of students interested in housing, real estate, and community development law to take a concentration of relevant courses to increase their competency to do work as lawyers in these areas

Research, Scholarship and Policy Work (50%)

• Assist with the development of a program for the Initiative's annual marquee public event featuring leading scholars and researchers who are addressing a high-profile property-related issue impacting a disadvantaged community or communities;

• Assist the Director in the identification of a small portfolio of potential property-related legal reform and policy matters relevant to disadvantaged communities;

• Help conceptualize a process for how a team of experts can work proactively on developing legal reform and policy solutions to address these matters and to disseminate the proposed solutions to relevant stakeholders;

• Help plan both continuing legal education programs for lawyers and community legal education events addressing property-related legal issues of particular significance to disadvantaged communities;

• Assist with efforts to develop white papers, applied research, academic articles, and media pieces, including op-eds.

Administrative Responsibilities (5%)

• Work with the Marketing and Communications Office to build the Initiative's online presence, in terms of a website, social media presence, and otherwise;

• In collaboration with the law school's communications staff and/or the Administrative Assistant:

• Manage logistics and outreach for Initiative activities;

• Create and design promotional materials for Initiative activities, including brochures and flyers;

• Conduct outreach to various stakeholders to promote events, to enhance the Initiative's educational opportunities for students, and to help build strategic collaborative relationships

Full-Time Equivalent Hiring Range: $70,850 to $88,550; salary commensurate with relevant experience.

Requirements

Education:

• Bachelor's degree required

• Law degree or other advanced degree required

Experience:

• Minimum 2-5 years legal and/or project management experience
• Experience in higher education a plus
• Public service legal work or policy work is plus
• Candidate must have proven written and oral communication skills, the ability to manage multiple, complex, and ongoing projects, and the ability to work independently, as well as work as part of a team.
• Any experience in an entrepreneurial or start up environment a plus.

Exceptional Work Schedule Demands

• Occasional evening and weekend work required.

University Core Competencies

Teamwork, Customer Focus, Continuous Learning, Decision Making/Problem Solving, Communication, Applying Technology, Valuing Diversity, Big Picture Perspective, Openness to Change, Productivity, People Development, Entrepreneurial Spirit

Functional and Technical Competencies

• Proven organizational and management skills in setting and achieving objectives but doing so in an extremely detailed oriented manner
• Ability to do legal and policy research
• Demonstrated problem-solving and critical thinking skills
• Capable user of standard office applications such as email, and Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word). More generally, strong Internet skills needed.
• Ability to manage various databases
• Effective interpersonal and communication skills - in person, on the phone, and online, including social media
• Outstanding writer of different types of written communications (email, letters, reports, memos, social media posts, and others) and ability to communicate complex ideas to multiple audiences inappropriate ways to reach those audiences
• Ability to develop and maintain relationships at all levels
• Strong entrepreneurial orientation, thinks creatively, and can work independently

• Comfort working with distributed team and able to see the big picture and simultaneously develop and implement incremental steps that lead to progress

This position will work as part of a team in the Law School that includes the Director, an administrative assistant, and graduate assistants. There will be interactions with departments outside of the Law School, including but not limited to the Office of Advancement and with various stakeholders in the greater Boston area and some stakeholders in other parts of the country.

Closing Statement

Boston College offers a broad and competitive range of benefits depending on your job classification eligibility:

• Tuition remission for Employees
• Tuition remission for Spouses and Children who meet eligibility requirements
• Generous Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Low-Cost Life Insurance
• Eligibility for both University-Funded 401k and Employer-Sponsored 403b Retirement Plans
• Paid Holidays Annually
• Generous Sick and Vacation Pay
• Additional benefits can be found on https://www.bc.edu/employeehandbook

Boston College conducts pre-employment background checks as part of the hiring process and requires all employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Boston College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. In concert with our Jesuit, Catholic mission, Boston College is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic faculty and staff committed to teaching and working in a multicultural environment and strongly encourages applications for women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, and covered veterans. To learn more about how BC supports diversity and inclusion throughout the university please visit the Office for Institutional Diversity at https://www.bc.edu/offices/diversity.

Boston College's Notice of Nondiscrimination can be viewed at https://www.bc.edu/nondiscrimination.

Boston College