Western Washington University, with over 15,000 students in seven colleges and the graduate school, is nationally recognized for its educational programs, students and faculty. The campus is located in Bellingham, Washington, a coastal community of 90,000 overlooking Bellingham Bay, the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades Mountain range. The city lies 90 miles north of Seattle and 60 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Western has additional sites in Anacortes, Bremerton, Everett, Port Angeles, and Poulsbo. Western is recognized nationally for its successes, such as being named one of the top public master's-granting institutions in the Pacific Northwest for 25 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

Western Washington University is committed to achieving excellence through advancing inclusive success, increasing our Washington impact, and focusing on transformational education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences and based on innovative scholarship, research, and creative activity. Western's greatest strength is the outstanding students, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae who make up its community. Western supports an inclusive governance structure for all and provides a learning and working environment in which everyone can thrive. In pursuit of this excellence, individual employees are expected to establish and maintain productive and effective inclusive working relationships amongst diverse populations including staff, faculty, administration, student, and external constituents. Further, individual employees are expected to have the ability to operationalize sustainability concepts (economic, societal, environmental) into all aspects of performing their job duties.

Western seeks a highly collaborative and creative professional to join our university team as the Assistant Director of Dining. This is an in-person and on-site position, with an anticipated start date of November 2024. This new position coordinates all aspects of Western’s dining and beverage/vending contract in a dynamic, fast-paced, and constantly evolving environment. The manager provides day-to-day support to ensure dining and beverage/vending operations are functioning smoothly across multiple sites and stakeholders have continuous communications. The scope of responsibilities includes contract management and administration, problem solving, strategic planning, customer support, and a liaison for our facilities team.

Duties/Responsibilities:

Contract Management/Administration

• Coordinate Western’s Dining and Beverage/Vending Contracts and their daily operations.
• Function as the primary advisor to the executive director and associate directors in University Residences regarding administration of dining and beverage/vending contracts and other obligatory agreements associated with these activities.
• Serve as a main contact for all dining and beverage contract activities across campus. Stakeholders include but limited to the Child Development Center, Academic Affairs, Disability Access Center, Student Life, Financial Aid, Veteran Services, the Office of the President.
• Interact with all levels at Western and contracted vendor management.
• Participate in problem-solving, assessment, and service evaluation.
• In partnership with associate director and department leadership, communicate and implement dining and auxiliary vision, mission, goals, and objectives and strategic plans with Western’s Community.
• Understand metrics of university meal plans and beverage/vending programs and use them to suggest improvements.
• Collaborate with associate director and leadership to strategically plan for fiscally sound operations, excellent customer service, and effective programmatic development.
• Understand daily operations across venues regarding service and execution and recommend efficiencies.
• Work with conferences, Office of Continuing Education, and incoming visiting groups, to facilitate and administer dining options all year around. 
• Regularly evaluate the quality of contracted dining and beverage services.
• Function as main Western contact for all dining food service challenges with ability to bring campus stakeholders together, assess problems, identify workable solutions, and implement resolutions.
• Develop new meal plan offering to students, faculty, staff, and works with Transact administrators to configure POS systems to support updates.
• Coordinate with the associate and executive director on annual reporting efforts of assisting in documentary achievement of university values, goals, and mission.

 Customer and Technology Support

• Serve as an advisor to the Dining Services Advisory Committee on issues relating to food services.
• Function as a main point of customer support contact by interacting with students, parents, faculty, and staff via email, phone calls or in person meetings. 
• Develop and attend student and community feedback opportunities and conversations involving dining and beverage and vending services.
• Provide oversight for meal plan IT systems software including licensing, hardware inventory, and programming of meal plans.
• Works closely with IT resources to resolve any issues related to student meal plan systems.

 Leadership and Supervision

• Supervisory responsibilities of 1-2 classified staff
• Prepare annual dining report and support other reporting requests (mid-year report, BFA finance reports) as needed.
• Constant review of dining contract and annual contracts and suggest updates as needed yearly.
• Provide leadership and oversight for Transact and Meal Plans Plus software implementation and daily use, serve as primary data custodian for Transact, work with functional user stakeholders to ensure software is robust and provides excellent support/service.

Act on behalf of the associate director in their absence

Facilities and Procurement Liaison

• As needed, supports the associate and assistant director for University Residences Facilities with any facilities-related dining issues, equipment issues, purchases, and operational issues.
• Analyzes and evaluates dining vendor FF&E and other bids or proposals and determines compliance with Western’s contract requirements, including but not limited to technical specifications, life cycle costing, the Environmental Protection Agency’s recycled content guidelines, instate reciprocity, minority and women business enterprise participation and price.

Suggests corrective action if bids or proposals do not meet requirements including negotiations to correct performance, price adjustments, or contract terminations  

  Other Duties as Assigned

• Bachelor’s Degree
• Five (5) years of experience in a management position or higher overseeing a complex program with multiple stakeholders.
• 2-3 years’ experience managing, training, and working with a variety of software applications and databases.
• 2-3 years’ supervisory experience
• Effective communication, negotiation, and critical thinking skills
• Excellent planning and organization skills
• Self-initiator
• Customer service oriented
• Effective collaborator
• Demonstrated ability to work and lead effectively in a diverse environment.

• Master’s degree.
• Experience working in a university/college higher education setting.
• Experience with Banner, Millennium, Star Rez, Transact, Meal Plans Plus
• Proven ability to plan and manage operational processes and implement new structures for maximum efficiency and productivity.
• Experience interpreting and executing and developing complex contracts and other contractual agreements.

Benefits Overview for Administrative Professional Position.

Application materials (resume, cover letter, references) should address your experience related to the position responsibilities and the required and preferred qualifications.

Open until filled; preference given to applications received by October 25, 2024.

Western Washington University (WWU) is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained faculty and staff. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. In compliance with applicable laws and in furtherance of its commitment to fostering an environment that welcomes and embraces diversity, WWU does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and parenting status), disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status or genetic information in its programs or activities, including employment, admissions, and educational programs. See WWU’s Policy on Ensuring Equal Opportunity and Prohibiting Discrimination and Retaliation. Inquiries may be directed to the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance, Title IX and ADA Coordinator, Western Washington University, Old Main 126 (MS 9021), 516 High Street, Bellingham, WA 98225; 360.650.3307 (voice) or 711 (Washington Relay); crtc@wwu.edu

WWU is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. To request this document in an alternate format or to request an accommodation, please contact Human Resources Disability Services, 360.650.3751 or 711 (Washington Relay).

Annual Security and Fire Safety Report: This report is provided pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act ("The Clery Act"). It includes statistics for the previous three calendar years concerning reported crimes that occurred on Western's campus; in certain off-campus buildings or property owned or controlled by Western; and on public property within, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from, the campus. The report also includes institutional policies concerning campus security, such as policies concerning alcohol and drug use, crime prevention, the reporting of crimes, sexual assault, and other matters. You can obtain a copy of this report in printed or alternate formats by contacting the Office of the Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services at vpsa.office@wwu.edu. The report can be found at: Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.

All new employees must comply with the immunization policy and show employment eligibility verification as required by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service before beginning work at WWU. A thorough background check will be conducted on all new hires which includes a sexual misconduct background check.