Job Description
The Associate Dean of Social Work and Behavioral Health Programs provides strategic, academic, operational, and business leadership for WGU's social work and behavioral health portfolio. This role is responsible for building, launching, scaling, and continuously improving high-quality, workforce-aligned programs that prepare students for careers in social work, behavioral health, mental health, substance use, community health, and human services.
The Associate Dean serves as both academic leader and business owner - with P&L responsibility for program performance, student outcomes, workforce relevance, regulatory and accreditation alignment, faculty leadership, and financial sustainability. This role partners across the Leavitt School of Health and university functions including enrollment, marketing, product, academic delivery, assessment, accreditation, finance, and student support to ensure programs meet student, employer, community, and professional needs.
Success in this role is measured by the ability to grow and sustain high-quality programs, improve retention and completion, support licensure and workforce outcomes, meet accreditation and regulatory expectations, and deliver strong return on investment for students and the university - while managing the portfolio's budget, enrollment growth, and contribution margin.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities
- Provides strategic leadership and end-to-end ownership for social work and behavioral health programs, including program strategy, growth, student outcomes, financial performance, academic quality, and workforce alignment.
- Owns P&L for the portfolio, managing budget, enrollment assumptions, staffing plans, and contribution margin against university growth targets.
- Leads the development, launch, revision, and scaling of market-relevant, competency-based programs addressing national and regional workforce needs across social work, behavioral health, mental health, substance use, community health, and human services.
- Maintains primary accountability for CSWE accreditation activities - self-study development, candidacy, reaffirmation, site visits, assessment plans, reporting, and continuous improvement - and for any other relevant regulatory or professional approval processes.
- Partners with academic, operational, and regulatory teams to ensure field education, practicum, clinical placement, supervision, and experiential learning models meet accreditation, student, and workforce needs.
- Ensures programs remain aligned with professional standards, employer expectations, licensure pathways, and evolving workforce trends, including monitoring multi-state licensure requirements and scope-of-practice variation.
- Serves as a credible academic and industry voice for social work and behavioral health - representing the school in strategy discussions, external partnerships, professional associations, conferences, and workforce development opportunities.
- Builds and strengthens relationships with healthcare organizations, behavioral health providers, social service agencies, community organizations, government entities, professional associations, and employer partners.
- Leads and develops diverse, distributed teams - program leaders, faculty, program managers, instructional teams, and cross-functional partners - fostering accountability, collaboration, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
- Uses data and analytics to monitor program health: student progression, retention, completion, field placement outcomes, licensure outcomes, employment outcomes, student satisfaction, and faculty performance.
- Drives a culture of experimentation, measurement, and learning to improve academic quality, student support, and operational effectiveness.
- Partners with enrollment, marketing, and workforce teams on go-to-market strategies that connect programs to the right students and employer/community needs.
- Leads through ambiguity and makes sound decisions in a rapidly changing academic, regulatory, and workforce environment.
- Supports innovation in curriculum, assessment, field education, student support, technology, and artificial intelligence to improve learning and operational outcomes.
- Performs other job-related duties as assigned.
