"Associate Vice President (AVP) for Liberal Arts and Sciences"

Job Description Summary

The application deadline for this position is 11:59pm EST on April 5, 2026.

Established in 1965, Santa Fe College (SF) serves over 15,000 students each semester with a comprehensive set of programs from adult basic education through baccalaureate degrees. Winner of the Aspen Prize in 2015, SF continues its tradition of excellence and was recently named an Opportunity College by the Carnegie Foundation. In addition to preparing students for the local workforce, SF partners closely with the University of Florida to provide a variety of transfer opportunities for students from across Florida and throughout the world.

Reporting to the Provost and serving as part of the Academic Affairs leadership team, the Associate Vice President (AVP) for Liberal Arts and Sciences provides strategic leadership and supervision for general and transfer education at SF and manages departments and programs in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, including English; Fine Arts and Entertainment Technology; Humanities, Communications, and Languages; Mathematics; Natural Sciences; and Social and Behavioral Sciences. In addition to directly supervising the department chairs, the AVP will have specific leadership responsibility for supporting departments in the areas of curriculum development, student learning assessment, planning unit review, and the resolution of student and personnel issues. As a member of the academic leadership team, the AVP will also lead projects and initiatives and collaborate with other departments and offices throughout the College as assigned.

The ideal candidate will have interdisciplinary interests in liberal arts and sciences, relevant experience in higher education, a knowledge of best practices in teaching and learning, and an established track record of managing resources and leading significant initiatives.

The starting salary is set by the President and is commensurate upon an individuals qualifications.

Job Description

Responsibilities and Duties Include:

Academic Leadership and Strategy

• Provides strategic leadership for transfer and workforce preparation programs in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, aligning efforts with the Colleges strategic plan and accreditation standards.
• Drives continuous improvement using enrollment, retention, labor market, and transfer performance data
• Champions a culture of teaching excellence and student success.
• Studies current and emerging best practices in undergraduate education.

Curriculum and Assessment

• Oversees development, review, and approval of curricula, including new programs, concentrations, certificates, and transfer pathways in a variety of delivery modalities (in-person, online, hybrid, accelerated, etc.).
• Ensures curriculum pathways are mapped clearly for both university transfer and immediate employment, including embedded certificates and stackable credentials.
• Ensures systematic learning outcomes assessment and program review, including external advisory input for workforce programs and transfer partner input for academic majors; oversees assessment of the general education program; closes the loop by implementing action plans and reporting results.
• Leads the implementation of high impact practices that promote student learning in communication, critical thinking, scientific reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and inquiry and analysis.
• Partners with eLearning to expand high quality online and hybrid offerings, supports innovation in digital pedagogy, and maintains compliance with distance education standards.
• Supports initiatives related to OER, low-cost textbook strategies, digital learning design, syllabus publication through Simple Syllabus, and AI enhanced teaching and learning.

Faculty Affairs and Department Chair Supervision

• Directly supervises department chairs, providing coaching, leadership development, and clear expectations for operational and academic excellence.
• Works with chairs on faculty hiring, mentoring, evaluation, and promotion processes, with attention to balancing full-time and adjunct faculty contributions by discipline.
• Supports faculty development in active learning, high impact practices, universal design for learning, and technology enabled instruction.
• Collaborates with chairs on staffing strategies to meet enrollment demand across day/evening/weekend, dual enrollment, online, and accelerated formats.

Workforce, Transfer, and Academic Partnerships

• Engages in partnerships with local and regional universities to ensure seamless transfer pathways, articulation agreements, and joint advising.
• Works with secondary partners to strengthen college readiness and curricular alignment.
• Strengthens dual enrollment programming in cooperation with internal and external stakeholders.
• Engages transfer partners, industry, and community organizations to ensure courses and programs are meeting transfer institution and employer needs.

Enrollment Management and Student Success

• Works with department chairs to ensure efficient and effective scheduling across departments to ensure that students can assemble a seamless class schedule with general education and other offerings from a variety of departments.
• Uses data to improve enrollment, gateway course success, persistence, and graduation rates across transfer and workforce programs.
• Advances institutional commitments to successful student outcomes by working with colleagues in Student Affairs and Learning Support Services to identify and promote supports for students.
• Monitors achievement gaps across student groups and guides departments in developing targeted interventions.
• Promotes responsive curricula that reflect the communities served by the institution.

Budget, Operations, and Resource Management

• Trains cost center managers in effective budgeting and resource management, allocating resources in alignment with planning unit reviews, enrollment, program costs, and strategic priorities.
• Oversees classroom and laboratory sufficiency, including specialized equipment, safety protocols, and simulation environments.
• Ensures efficient scheduling across multiple locations, online modalities, and evening/weekend offerings to support learners.
• Exercises sound fiscal stewardship by monitoring and evaluating expenditures.
• Seeks and secures grants and philanthropic funding in partnership with the Colleges grants and fundraising personnel.

Accreditation, Compliance, and Quality Assurance

• Ensures compliance with assumed practices and criteria for accreditation of the institutional accreditor and specialized accreditation for applicable workforce programs.
• Maintains documentation systems for assessment, program review, technical standards, and regulatory requirements (state, federal, and licensing bodies).
• Coordinates teach out plans, curriculum alignment with state frameworks, and reviews for ongoing program viability.

Communication, Collaboration, and Institutional Leadership

• Maintains transparent, timely communication with chairs, faculty, staff, and students.
• Facilitates regular meetings with chairs, program coordinators, and cross departmental groups to align priorities and improve communication.
• Serves as a key member of the academic leadership team, contributing to policy development, strategic planning, enrollment discussions, and crisis response.
• Collaborates effectively with shared governance bodies.
• Represents Academic Affairs on college committees, community boards, workforce alliances, and transfer partner councils.

Reporting and Accountability

• Provides the Provost with annual reports highlighting program outcomes, fiscal performance, transfer metrics, workforce alignment, and student success indicators.
• Establishes departmental KPIs, such as transfer success rates, licensure pass rates, job placement, course success, and program completion, and ensures progress monitoring throughout the year.
• Provides service to the college through participation in events, committees, and other college activities.
• Complies with all published College Rules, procedures, guidelines, and laws/regulations governing public employees, including but not limited to those related to document retention and destruction, FERPA, and confidentiality.
• Strictly honors the privacy, security, and confidentiality of records and other sensitive information according to appropriate state, federal, and college regulations, policies, and procedures.
• Provides service excellence through courteous, informed, accessible, and professional engagement.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Reports to: Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

QUALIFICATIONS

Required: Must hold the credentials necessary to teach in at least one (1) of the disciplines within the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Credentialing Manual). Successful full-time teaching and administrative work experience, at least some of which must be post-secondary.

Additional Requirements: A criminal background check will be conducted.

Preferred: A PhD or other terminal degree in a relevant discipline; five (5) years of full-time post-secondary teaching experience; and five (5) years of full-time experience as a post-secondary department chair or equivalent position.

General Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ability to work successfully in a multi-cultural environment.
• Adaptability to Change – able to be flexible and supportive, able to positively and proactively assimilate change in rapid growth environment.
• Analytical Aptitude & Problem Solving - able to analyze information, problems, situations, practices and/or procedures, collect and interpret data, reason logically, establish facts, identify and define existing and potential issues, recognize the interrelationships among elements, draw valid conclusions, develop recommendations, as well as alternative courses of action, select appropriate course, follow up, and evaluate.
• Communication – able to effectively communicate in a professional, diplomatic, empathetic, and tactful manner using preferred method and level as applicable to the job.
• Critical Thinking & Judgement - able to make well-reasoned, sensible, and timely decisions based on careful, objective review and informed analysis of available information, considerations, and other factors.
• Customer Service – ability to respond promptly and courteously to all questions from students and faculty, demonstrating patience and persistence when helping students with little or no computer skills.
• Ethics – able to demonstrate integrity, professionalism, civility, and a high degree of ethics in all job-related actions.
• Leadership – has demonstrated success as an entrepreneurial, high energy, driven, hands-on leader.  Possess expertise in selecting, training, developing, coaching, mentoring, and retaining a highly motivated workforce.
• Organization & Time Management – able to plan, schedule, and organize tasks related to the job to achieve goals within or ahead of established time frames.
• Problem Solving – proven skills in identifying issues, determining their cause, developing creative solutions, and following through with implementing resolutions.
• Team Orientation & Interpersonal — highly motivated team-player with ability to develop and maintain collaborative relationships with all levels within and external to the organization.
• Relationship Management – able to personally provide high level of interactive service to others, building relationships and addressing identified needs.
• Results Orientation – proven ability to set and exceed established targets.
• Systems & Software - proficient level of knowledge of Microsoft Office and/or relevant position software programs.
• Detail Oriented - Proven accuracy and attention to detail.
• Multi-task - Ability to expeditiously organize, coordinate, manage, prioritize, and perform multiple tasks simultaneously to swiftly assess a situation, determine a logical course of action, and apply the appropriate response.

Application Process:

All applicants must submit a completed online SF application, a letter of intent, an up-to-date resume/curriculum vitae, and unofficial academic transcripts to be considered for this position. Unofficial transcripts are only accepted for review purposes; official transcripts are required prior to any offer of employment being made.