Providing Help the University Can Count On

Allison List plays crucial role in St. Joseph’s transparency

Integrity.

It’s at the heart of what Allison List does as the director of institutional research at St. Joseph’s University, New York.

In her role, Ms. List oversees all things involving data at the University — collecting, interpreting, organizing and reporting it.

“Integrity for a director of institutional research — and institutional research in general — is very important because you need the faculty, staff and community really to trust you,” said Ms. List, 43, who’s worked at St. Joseph’s for nine years. “They don’t necessarily have any way of knowing what’s right when you’re putting these numbers out.”

From reporting the correct enrollment numbers to accurately monitoring the total number of programs, majors, minors, certificates and more, Ms. List’s role is crucial in the transparency of the University. The accuracy of what she does is part of what helps St. Joseph’s repeatedly earn a spot among top institutions on such impressive lists as the U.S. News & World Reports “Best Colleges.”

And Ms. List can take pride in more than just that. Using her experience as the deputy director of institutional research at Long Island University, she helped create a working system for collecting and reporting data at St. Joseph’s.

“I basically built the whole office from scratch,” she said. “I’m very proud of that.”

Throughout her time at the University, Ms. List’s favorite part of the job remains the same: helping people.

“I like helping,” she said. “So not only with the numbers, but because I work with data all the time, I have a lot of ease of using some of the tools that I need to use, and that makes reporting for certain people much easier, so I can help people make their lives easier. I really love when I get that opportunity.”

As for the hardest part of her job? There is none, she says.

“I wouldn’t say there’s anything I don’t like about my job,” said Ms. List, a first-generation college graduate who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in higher education. “I’m very lucky in that way.”

In fact, landing the job at St. Joseph’s felt a lot like fate to Ms. List, who was hoping to find a job specifically at the University when searching for a job nine years ago.

“This one came up when I was on maternity leave with my son, and I was so excited,” reported Ms. List, who lives in Centereach with her husband Tom, their daughter Grace and their son Michael. “It was meant to be. It’s very nice to work here. It feels like it was just yesterday I started this job.”