Dean, School of Education and Leadership

CityU delivers online, hybrid, and in-person programs designed to help students advance in their careers, strengthen their communities, and achieve goals that may once have seemed out of reach. Our students bring substantial experience, competing responsibilities, and clear expectations about the value of their education. Serving them well requires academic programs that are rigorous, responsive, and designed for the realities of adult life.

The University is entering an important period of reflection, prioritization, and renewal. While a new strategic direction is still taking shape, several commitments are already clear: strengthening academic quality, improving student outcomes, focusing our resources, and building for long-term sustainability.

The School of Education and Leadership is central to that future. As CityU defines its next chapter, the next Dean will play an important role in helping shape both the School's direction and the University's broader aspirations.

Job Description:

Position Summary

The Dean of the School of Education and Leadership is the School's chief academic and administrative leader, responsible for its academic quality, relevance, growth, and long-term sustainability.

Reporting to the Chief Academic Officer, the Dean will shape the School's next chapter by strengthening its programs, developing its people, building consequential partnerships, and creating new pathways for learners. This is not a role focused simply on maintaining what already exists. It calls for a leader who can see possibility, make difficult choices, align people and resources, and turn direction into results.

The Dean leads the School's faculty, staff, programs, partnerships, and operations and serves as a member of the University's academic leadership team. Working across CityU, the Dean will help connect academic priorities with student needs, workforce demand, community opportunity, and the resources required to deliver on the University's commitments.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic and Academic Leadership

• Shape the future of the School of Education and Leadership by making clear choices about where to grow, where to innovate, and where to focus the School's finite time, talent, and resources.
• Decide what the School should be known for and align its programs, people, resources, and external relationships around that direction.
• Build on the School's strengths while addressing the challenges and opportunities that will shape its future.
• Convert institutional priorities into visible progress, ensuring commitments become actions, actions produce results, and results inform future decisions.
• Lead with evidence, curiosity, and judgment by using academic, enrollment, financial, workforce, and student-outcomes data to test assumptions and improve decisions.

Academic Quality, Programs, Learning, and Student Success

• Ensure the quality, integrity, and effectiveness of the School's academic programs, including curriculum, assessment, accreditation, licensure, and regulatory compliance.
• Create new pathways for working professionals, aspiring educators, and organizational leaders through programs, credentials, partnerships, and learning experiences that respond to real-world needs.
• Examine programs honestly and determine where CityU should invest, improve, redesign, combine, or step away.
• Keep the experiences and aspirations of CityU's students at the center of academic decisions, with particular attention to engagement, persistence, completion, and career advancement.
• Build habits of inquiry and continuous learning so that evidence leads to action rather than simply reporting.

Faculty & Team Leadership

• Build a faculty and staff culture capable of creating what comes next, characterized by shared direction, high expectations, accountability, professional growth, and ownership of results.
• Recruit, develop, support, and evaluate faculty and academic leaders who are committed to adult learners, academic quality, and the continued growth of the School.
• Create clarity about priorities, decision-making, and expected results so people can focus their energy on the work that matters most.
• Develop leadership capacity among program directors, program managers, and faculty leaders, expanding the School's ability to lead change and follow through on commitments.
• Help teams navigate ambiguity, competing priorities, and difficult choices without losing sight of students, mission, or results.

External Engagement & Relationship Building

• Cultivate relationships beyond the University that strengthen opportunities for learners and advance the School's strategic priorities.
• Translate the needs of students, employers, educators, and communities into stronger programs, new educational pathways, and opportunities for growth.
• Develop relationships that expand opportunity for learners, strengthen workforce relevance, and extend the School's impact
• Represent CityU and the School as a thoughtful and engaged voice in conversations about education, leadership development, workforce preparation, and lifelong learning.
• Work across enrollment, marketing, and community engagement to convert promising ideas and relationships into sustainable programs and meaningful results.

School Performance and Stewardship

• Lead the School as both an academic community and a mission-driven enterprise, balancing academic quality, student outcomes, enrollment, resources, and long-term sustainability.
• Make disciplined choices about budgets, staffing, scheduling, technology, and other resources based on the School's priorities and the value created for students.
• Monitor program performance, enrollment, student outcomes, and financial results and act when the evidence points to the need for a different course.
• Build practical systems and operating habits that improve accountability, strengthen follow-through, and help the School deliver consistently.
• Ensure the School meets its academic, regulatory, financial, and institutional responsibilities while remaining responsive to emerging opportunities.

Requirements:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Earned doctorate from an accredited institution in Education, Leadership, or a closely related field.
• Experience leading significant organizational, programmatic, or operational initiatives, including making difficult choices, aligning resources, and delivering measurable results.
• Ability to quickly develop and apply knowledge of accreditation, assessment, educator preparation, and regulatory requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to use evidence to assess program quality, student outcomes, enrollment, resource needs, and organizational performance.
• Record of building productive partnerships and working across institutional and organizational boundaries.
• Strong judgment, communication, relationship-building, and decision-making skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading online, adult-serving, or professionally focused academic programs.
• Experience with enrollment growth, program development, and market-responsive academic innovation.
• Significant higher education leadership experience that includes responsibility for academic programs, faculty leadership, and school or unit operations.
• Experience developing partnerships with school districts, employers, community organizations, or professional associations.
• Experience with budgeting, resource planning, and financial management.

Additional Information:

Successful Candidate Profile

You are a builder.

You understand how to honor what is working without becoming its caretaker. You can see what the School might become, name the choices required to get there, and bring people into the work of building it. You question inherited assumptions, confront difficult realities, and make thoughtful decisions when the path is not obvious.

You are equally comfortable discussing learning, faculty, enrollment, student outcomes, external relationships, workforce needs, and financial sustainability because they understand that these are not separate conversations. Together, they determine whether an academic school can deliver on its purpose.

You know the difference between activity and progress. You establish direction, create clarity, follow through on commitments, and help others do the same. You lead through relationships and influence as well as formal authority and know when to listen, when to challenge, when to decide, and when to change course.

You bring intellectual curiosity, persistence, perspective, sound judgment, and good humor. Above all, you are drawn to CityU's mission and to the opportunity to create stronger pathways for working adults and other learners seeking education that is relevant, flexible, and connected to opportunity.

Salary information:

$135,000 - $165,000/year

Benefits information:

We offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes paid holidays, paid time off, health, dental, and vision insurance, healthcare spending or reimbursement accounts such as HSAs or FSAs, other voluntary insurance, retirement benefits and employer matching, tuition benefits, commuting/travel assistance, and other workplace perks.

Application Instructions:

City University of Seattle accepts applications through this online process only. For consideration, please submit a complete application packet. A complete application includes the following:

• Completed Electronic Application Form
• Resume
• Cover Letter

Once you have created a profile, please remember to record your password. Responses will be sent to your Interview Exchange account if you use the 'Help Desk' feature. A hiring manager will contact candidates with qualifications and experience most aligned with current needs. Once the position is filled, you will see a status update in your account profile.

If you encounter technical problems while applying for a position, please use the 'Help Desk' feature in your Interview Exchange account to submit the issue to technical support. For non-technical issues or questions, please email employment@cityu.edu.

City University of Seattle is an equal opportunity employer and is continuously working to build a diverse faculty and staff. City University strongly encourages inquiries from all qualified individuals interested in becoming part of the CityU team, including women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities.