Description:
The McNeil Center Director will plan and execute strategies to:
- inculcate an entrepreneurial mindset among our students and faculty and provide them with the knowledge, skills and experiences needed to be successful at advancing their ideas, innovations and improvements within existing companies and through companies they might create,
- increase awareness of the McNeil Center’s mission and offerings among all students and faculty,
- increase engagement of students and faculty and external partners in the McNeil Center’s efforts,
- prepare those students considering commercialization for the expectations for, and transition to working with the Beck Venture Center, and
- raise external funds to support the McNeil Center’s activities.
This will involve:
- teaching formal credit-bearing courses, and workshops and seminars as needed,
- offering design challenges and hackathons,
- collaborating with directors of the Beck Venture Center and Labriola Innovation Hub, academic program leaders, faculty, students, companies and funding agencies, and the Colorado School of Mines Foundation,
- coordinating educational content with aligned initiatives that already exist at Mines - for example: Cornerstone Design, Capstone Design, and other design/build courses and programs,
- providing training and sharing best practices with faculty who will integrate the entrepreneurial mindset and experiences into their courses,
- developing relationships with and writing proposals to funding agencies, companies, and donors to secure funding for entrepreneurship and innovation programming and other strategic initiatives, and
- securing input and feedback from students, faculty, industry representatives, alumni, donors and university leadership relative to the McNeil Center’s activities and direction, and
- supervising staff, developing budgets, overseeing center spending, and ensuring regular and accurate financial reporting.
It is recognized that the successful candidate might come to this position from either a career rooted primarily in the private sector or in academia or may have experience in both. For that reason, two sets of minimum qualifications are listed below.
Minimum Qualifications for Applicants with a Private Sector or Commercial Background:
The successful candidate will be an energetic, creative, engaging, inspiring, and naturally collaborative leader with at least a bachelor’s degree and more than five years of experiences relevant to the mission of the McNeil Center, including:
- as an entrepreneur
- as an instructor in topics relevant to the mission of the McNeil Center
- as an advisor to teams of individuals on efforts relevant to the mission of the McNeil Center
- as a member of, or collaborator with a university
- as a strategic planner
- as a leader of a multi-person team
It is up to the applicant to synthesize and describe how their experience is relevant to the mission of the McNeil Center, the expectations of its director, and Colorado School of Mines’ goals.
OR
Minimum Qualifications for Applicants with an Academic Faculty Background:
- Advanced degree in a STEM field, Entrepreneurship, Business/Economics, or a closely related discipline from an accredited program
- Commitment to excellence in instruction and curriculum development at both the undergraduate and graduate levels
- Excellence in advising students and teams