Higher Education Design Specialist

The University Design Institute (UDI) is seeking a qualified candidate to serve as the Higher Education Design Specialist for the USAID US-PHL Partnership for Skills, Innovation, and Lifelong Learning (UPSKILL) Program.  This is a 4-year, grant-funded position and has the potential for extension dependent on funding and UDI growth opportunities in-country. Based in Manila, Philippines, this role will serve as the local lead designer/facilitator for UDI’s portfolio of associated UPSKILL project deliverables in the area of higher education capacity building which include:

• An Innovation Leaders Fellowship which develops advocates for innovation and impact in higher education from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the Commission for Higher Education (CHED)

• A Transformation Accelerator that drives ideation and rapid prototyping for Philippine-focused solutions in higher education for teams from HEIs

• A Design Collaboratory that delivers tools needed to design high impact HEIs through courses, workshops, webinars, and networking events, available to all HEIs across the Philippines

• Establishing an entity that provides services and acts as a long-term sustainable asset for Philippine higher education development

This individual will have a clear track record of facilitating co-design sessions, programs, workshops, and stakeholder convenings, including the ability to customize tools, templates, and approaches for those engagements to be successful. UDI design engagements are practical, real-world applications of best practices from a variety of disciplines.

Reporting to the Senior Director for Higher Education Institutional Development, this individual will serve as a core design and facilitation expert for the UDI components of the UPSKILL project team including serving as the lead on the Transformation Accelerator component. This position is critical to ensuring executive teams from participating universities advance actionable prototypes for change. In support of this, the individual will connect teams to specialized experts, curate university design tools and resources and ensure the program team understands the nuances and needs of each institution. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working individually in this effort, in partnership with other facilitators and experts as well as able to take direction from senior leaders and collaborating experts as part of the design process.

Essential Duties:

• Co-design structured, collaborative processes for individuals and groups of people, in order to guide a group to accomplishing their desired outcomes and a common goal(s) through the facilitation across multiple programs with a particular focus on the Transformation Accelerator.

• Organize, manage, and lead both in-person and remote-facilitated workshops. 

• Support and/or lead needs assessments and listening sessions to understand client needs, and translate to design and facilitation experiences.

• Craft the best experience for clients through leveraging proven methods, while remaining agile and flexible to meet clients’ needs and modify approaches as necessary.

• Move teams rapidly from merely talking or debating a topic, to defining the topic or issue at hand, ideating and prototyping solutions, and build the team’s capacity to do such work for themselves.

• Provide structure and processes to support units in moving from ideas to implementation, such as suggested milestones and approaches for developing operational plans, or plans for prototyping and measuring impact of selected ideas.

• Synthesize findings into holistic and convincing concepts, determine recommendations, and define seamless storylines framing critical choices to be made by management teams.

• Manage multiple projects concurrently, while balancing differing priorities.

Desired Qualifications:

• Practical experience as a facilitator in organizational contexts (working teams, etc.) with the ability to maintain neutrality and attend to the needs of groups, rather than pushing internal agendas or personal bias.

• Proficiency in engaging authentically to build trust with a team, while also demonstrating confidence and assertiveness when necessary to keep a workshop on track.

• Deeply skilled in active listening with an ability to demonstrate empathy and understanding.

• Able to facilitate fairly sophisticated design needed to facilitate trainings for higher education teams to work on complex problems

• Engaging systems-level thinking and the ability to understand policies, structures, economics, and institutional drivers of an educational system within a broader cultural context

• Effective storyboarding and executive communication skills

• Commendable writing skills needed to create various outputs, from high-level reports to learning resources and materials

• Excellent organizational skills.

• Intercultural competence and experience working in global contexts.

• Experience and comfort in interacting with and presenting to C-suite and executive leaders.

• Master’s degree and six (6) years of experience or Bachelor’s degree and eight (8) years of experience.  Preference for experience in higher education.

• Must have strong written and oral English and Filipino proficiency.

• Must have prior authorization to work in the Philippines.

About UDI:

The University Design Institute (UDI) at Arizona State University is a catalyst for transformation in higher education. Our vision is for Universities to emerge as powerful engines of social transformation and economic impact. We co-design solutions for higher education. We collaborate with ASU and institutions globally to envision the future, solve problems, and move from ideas to implementation. We transform higher education by advancing innovative, scalable, and sustainable solutions.

We are a values-driven organization with a focus on 6 critical values. Our values include:

• Intentional Inclusionists: We create an environment of trust, support, acceptance and safety to foster a sense of belonging and wellbeing.

• Eternal Optimists: Change is an opportunity for progress, so we tirelessly work to co-create solutions to transform higher education

• Avid Learners: We embrace curiosity and an exploratory mindset to promote individual and institutional growth.

• Constructive Challengers: We commit to challenge processes and perspectives in a supportive environment to push towards continuous improvement.

• Collaborative Connectors: Through a culture of collaboration, we weave together a community of problem-solvers to move from ideas to implementation.

• Relentless Innovators: We fail forward, take risks, and move quickly to craft solutions with purpose.

Salary: PHP 1,373,163.75 ($23,500 USD)