The Opportunity
Cornell University seeks a Department Manager to lead the day-to-day operations of the Department of Architecture. In this role, you will provide administrative leadership that helps faculty, staff, and students do their best work while keeping the department’s programs and operations running effectively.
As the department’s senior nonacademic administrator, you will partner with the Department Chair to develop and implement short- and long-term operational, financial, and staffing strategies. You will lead a team of four administrative employees and help support approximately 27 tenure-stream faculty, 15 research, teaching, and extension faculty, 40–50 other academics, and programs serving about 340 undergraduate and 150 graduate students. The role reports jointly to the Department Chair and AAP’s Associate Dean for Administration.
You will steward an annual operating budget of approximately $10 million across instructional, administrative, and research and creative-practice activities. Your work will include financial planning and reporting, oversight of departmental policies and processes, staff development, and collaboration on sponsored programs. You will also coordinate with college partners on academic program administration, accreditation and strategic planning, human resources, technology, facilities, and the stewardship of shared spaces and assets. While the department’s primary operations are in Ithaca, you will collaborate with program staff in New York City and Rome.
This is an opportunity to build strong partnerships across a multidisciplinary college and improve how its work gets done. Working with faculty, staff, students, fellow department managers, and university partners, you will help the department navigate evolving priorities, strengthen its systems, and foster a culture of collaboration, inclusion, belonging, and wellbeing. The position is based on-site in Ithaca and is expected to be performed primarily in person. Cornell offers competitive compensation, generous time off, and comprehensive benefits.
About AAP:
The College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University (Cornell AAP) includes the departments of Architecture, Art, City and Regional Planning, the Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate, jointly led by AAP and the SC Johnson College of Business, the multicollege Department of Design Tech, and the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities. The college spans three locations in Ithaca, New York City, and Rome, Italy, each with world-class facilities and cutting-edge technologies.
Cornell AAP is about acts of transformation. We are committed to reimagining and reshaping the world in new ways, every day. A vital college at one of the nation's foremost research universities, Cornell AAP brings faculty, staff, and students together from around the world to take up some of today's most urgent challenges and advance research, inquiry, and collaborative approaches to designing, making, and doing that make a more just and resilient future.
About the Department of Architecture:
The Department of Architecture dates to the founding of Cornell University. The department engages urgent global issues through a foundation of conceptual thinking and processes of making, and is committed to architectural practices informed by and embedding within evolving and dynamic social, environmental, and technical contexts. Degree programs include a professional Bachelor of Architecture, a professional Master of Architecture, post-professional Master of Science degrees in Advanced Architectural Design and Advanced Urban Design, and a doctoral program in the History of Architecture and Urban Development. Cornell Architecture students and faculty benefit from the Material Practice Facilities in AAP and a world-renowned library collection, and participate in an expanded footprint that includes AAP NYC and Cornell in Rome.
What We Need
• A bachelor’s degree and 5–7 years of relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience in financial management and team leadership, including supervising others, setting priorities, and providing guidance, training, and support.
Skills for success
• Strong communication, leadership, organizational, analytical, and creative problem-solving skills; the ability to build productive relationships across roles and units.
• Experience with budgeting, financial reporting, and resource management, including the ability to analyze and present data to inform decisions.
• The ability to take both a strategic, big-picture view and a detail-oriented approach while handling ambiguity, confidential information, and changing priorities.
• The ability to work independently and collaboratively, set clear expectations, and support staff development.
• Facility with Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel, and with database and financial-management tools; in addition, the ability to learn new systems quickly is necessary, as is the capacity to help others use software and information or audiovisual technology.
• Demonstrated ability to connect inclusion, belonging, and wellbeing practices to organizational goals and to help create a respectful, welcoming work environment.
If you have all those things, great! We have a few more things that we would prefer you to have, but it’s ok if you don’t.
• Additional education (e.g., MBA or other relevant master’s degree), and/or substantial leadership-development training.
• Experience in higher education, especially within an academic department, a research-intensive unit, or another complex organization, Cornell-specific preferred.
• Familiarity with Cornell systems, policies, and procedures. Prior Cornell experience is not required; the ability to learn and stay current is what matters.
• Experience with tools such as Kuali Financial System, OBIEE, PeopleSoft, Workday, Slab, and/or Airtable, or comparable database, project-management, and organizational software.
- Our benefits programs include comprehensive health care options, generous retirement contributions, access to wellness programs, and employee discounts with local and national retail brands. We invite you to follow this link to get more information about our benefits: Understand Your Benefits | Working at Cornell.
- Our leave provisions include health and personal leave, three weeks of vacation and 13 holidays: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the day after, and an end of the year winter break from December 25-January 1. To offer greater flexibility for observing faiths and traditions we also offer two additional floating holidays. Learn more about our generous leave provisions: Holiday and Accrued Time Off | Working at Cornell
- Cornell's impressive educational benefits include tuition-free Extramural Study and Employee Degree Program, tuition aid for external education, and Cornell Children's Tuition Assistance Program. Learn more about our extensive educational benefits: Education Benefits | Working at Cornell
- Follow this link to learn more about the Total Rewards of Working at Cornell:Total Rewards | Working at Cornell.
Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
University Job Title:
Administrator V
Job Family:
Administration
Level:
G
Pay Rate Type:
Salary
Pay Range:
$115,191.00 - $140,789.00
Remote Option Availability:
Onsite
Company:
Endowed
Contact Name:
Sara Eddleman
Contact Email:
sle58@cornell.edu
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2026-10-23