Critical Components of a Successful Program Coordinator

Although widely used as a job title in academia, the role of Program Coordinator (PC) is often not well-defined and rarely matches the job description.The PC is responsible for a wide variety of programmatic tasks, which requires them to “change hats” throughout the day and the role evolves as an academic program progresses.How a program is initially set up tends to be more of a ”road map” but many detours may lie ahead and it may fall on the PC to navigate the new terrain and possibly help forge the new path by considering the needs and feedback of students, faculty and other stakeholders.Although the examples in this paper are from the perspectives of PCs who operate in National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) programs, the experiences and advice are applicable to any academic or research program, especially interdisciplinary programs.