Dr. Jacob Heller
The defining talent of working within a college’s administration is being able to juggle the multiple jobs thrown at you, in addition to your already established responsibilities. Newly promoted assistant vice president for institutional effectiveness and administration Dr. Jacob Heller does both.
Institutional Effectiveness is the research and assessment Heller analyzes and interprets to better monitor the college. That covers the academic assessment of courses and the institutional assessment of all administrative offices. This is done through surveys, articulation agreements with other schools, monitoring enrollment, and more. His work also involves duties such as reshaping the college catalog and designing the academic calendar.
Prior to SUNY Old Westbury, Heller took non-degree courses at Boston University and Stony Brook, studied abroad in Montreal and eventually received his Bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in biology. Dr. Heller taught high school Social Studies in Queens for three years, exercised the role as stay-at-home father, until he decided to return to Stony Brook to receive his Ph.D. in Sociology.
In 2001 SUNY OW offered Dr.Heller the position of Assistant Professor in Sociology as well as director of first year experience. Heller declined the administrative position and chose h the faculty position in sociology.
“It’s a little ironic maybe, that I had this sort of, administrative option when I started, that was not at all interesting,” he said. “And then being in the faculty role for seventeen years, it really became appealing.” Dr.Heller claims his change of interest was partly because he began participating in administrative tasks.
On the day he passed his six year track of teaching at SUNY OW, he was offered both a ten year track and chair of the Sociology Department. It was there he stayed for three years before transitioning into more of an administrative position as faculty senate chair.
One of the things Heller enjoyed about this administrative switch was affecting a larger number of students. During his time as senate chair, he reconfigured the class schedule, extending changing the common hour and shortening class meeting times, opening up the schedule for more sections.
“That [class schedule reconfiguration], I think, has an impact on all students. And that’s much more gratifying [than affecting a smaller number through teaching],” he said smiling.
He was also involved in the Institutional Review Board, where he was asked to work on the Middle States [Commission on Higher Education] accreditation. Through annual financial reporting, he received an even broader perspective on the college.
During his time at Old Westbury, he says his only frustrations are structural. He believes that with just a little more resources such as space and funding, SUNY OW could offer more class sections to better cater to students.
“What I would really love to have, is a situation where when people want to know what’s going on on campus, they could quickly and easily get the information that they need in order to make well-informed decisions,” he said. Through his data-rich work, Heller plans for more reliability and access, “so that people aren’t making decisions blind,” for instance: moving to an electronic-only course catalog.
“A short-term goal for me is to build the credibility of institutional research, so when people get data from me, they have confidence,” Dr. Heller emphasized. “It’s hard to know what the future holds, but I’d like to think I have something to contribute.”
