Dean of the Undergraduate College

The next Dean of the Undergraduate College (UGC) at National Louis University will join a college focused on advancing the mission of driving excellent outcomes in bachelor’s degree attainment and employment, by providing a student-centered, innovative, professionally-focused, inclusive, and supportive learning experience for NLU undergraduate students. The Dean of the Undergraduate College will need to be an enterprising and bold visionary prepared to explore, develop, and implement innovative approaches to curriculum and instruction, student engagement, student support, career preparation, and faculty and staff development, leading the college to higher and more equitable student outcomes. The Dean must embrace and model a growth mindset and practice that prioritizes career readiness and employment outcomes as the ultimate measure of its graduates. Further, the Dean must be willing to challenge the status quo of current academic and student support models to reduce complexity, increase efficiency and advance strategies and cutting-edge models that lead to the academic, personal, and professional development and success of all students.

The next Dean must possess a data-informed orientation and have a track record of executing necessary change to advance the reputation and contributions of the college. With an eye on the present and an eye toward the future, the Dean should have strong command of and attention to the day-to-day business and academic operations of the college, while also having an ability to think strategically and systematically about priorities and opportunities to scale. The Dean must have a strong external presence and serve as a fundraiser and build relationships that will support innovative initiatives within the college. The Dean should also demonstrate external awareness of relevant higher education trends as well as experience in cultivating partnerships to enhance the impact of the college. Overall, we seek a Dean who is relentlessly passionate about advancing success in students’ education and career outcomes, and who will build on the college’s early foundations while also challenging the status quo to lead the college to greater heights.

The Dean reports to the Provost and works directly with the President and Provost on strategic matters. The Dean will be responsible for leading a talented team of approximately 62 full-time faculty, 38 full-time staff, and 250+ adjunct faculty and part-time staff. The successful candidate will be a strategic, innovative, and results-oriented leader with a track record of success – setting clear expectations, inspiring people, collaborating across the institution, cultivating external champions, and managing effectively. This individual must show evidence of a deep appreciation for employing student-centered approaches; prioritizing instructional best practices; gaining internal and external stakeholder buy-in; and, exercising sound fiscal stewardship and decision-making related to the financial operations and goals of the college.

As a member of the University’s Leadership Team, the Dean must demonstrate the ability to think strategically, collaborate effectively, and execute at an enterprise level. This includes working across colleges and departments, contributing to institutional initiatives, and helping secure partnerships that advance the best interests of the University community. The Dean serves as an ambassador for the Undergraduate College and a key leader for the University. This includes building external relationships, cultivating partnerships and resources, supporting efforts to elevate the University’s brand, and serving as a thought leader by highlighting the innovative work and student success across the Undergraduate College and the institution.

Essential Responsibilities

Strategic Vision/Goal Setting and Execution: Provide vision and leadership for the College. In partnership with the Provost and aligned with the University’s strategic plan, establish multi-year vision and priorities as well as annual action plans to scale college enrollment and strengthen student outcomes - informed by institutional data and external trends. Ensure efficient processes and procedures are implemented to drive outcomes of strategic initiatives undertaken by the College. Guide ongoing reflection based on performance relative to priority Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including student learning outcomes, persistence to graduation, employment, and student satisfaction. Collaborate closely with University Strategic Data Center to ensure relevant analytics inform and enhance College planning and execution.
Talent Acquisition and Team Leadership: Attract, hire, develop, and retain faculty and staff talent. Provide direction, coaching, and supervision to the college’s leadership team, including two associate deans, executive director of undergraduate student success, assistant dean of operations, and additional directors of priority strategic initiatives. Maintain a regular presence on campus and work with all stakeholders to advance the organizational culture of the College, which is based on student-centeredness, service excellence, data-informed decision-making, and continuous improvement/innovation. Engage actively in shared governance dialogues, cultivating a culture of inclusion and ensuring ongoing feedback loops with faculty and staff regarding priority College matters. Manage personnel matters related to faculty and staff in the College.
Instructional Quality, Student Support, and Career Success: In collaboration with associate deans, faculty, success coaches/advisors, and career staff, establish and execute priorities to grow student outcomes. Work with associate deans and faculty to advance the instructional model that is student-centered, strengths-based, industry-aligned, career-focused, culturally responsive, and data-informed. Collaborate with the Online Education unit to ensure high-quality experience and strong outcomes for UGC online students. Work with associate deans, chairs/directors, and Provost’s Office to complete annual program assessment and accreditation requirements. Work with executive director of undergraduate student success as well as Student Affairs, Academic Advising, and Learning Support teams to ensure robust academic advising, student engagement, and wraparound support services are provided. Partner closely with University Career Bridge department to advance integrated UGC career preparation and placement model, ensuring college-wide faculty and staff engagement in the career development and employment outcomes of UGC students. Engage actively with the UGC Dean’s Student Advisory Council to ensure student voice informs College plans.
Fundraising and External Partnership Development: Work closely with the University’s Institutional Advancement team to raise external funding through philanthropy, partnerships, and grants, including annual fundraising goals to build capacity, invest in innovation, and grow student support resources. Forge and strengthen strategic partnerships locally and nationally between school districts, community colleges, community organizations, and employers to build college capacity, cultivate employment opportunities, and fuel enrollment. Represent the College at public events. Cultivate and lead engagements with the College’s Brain Trust – a strategic advisory council to the College and Dean.
College Vitality and Strategic Growth: Work closely with the Vice President of Marketing and Enrollment to support student recruitment initiatives, and to foster the recognition and growth of the College. Collaborate with community partners including but not limited to the UGC external advisory council and multiple industry advisory councils to identify existing and emerging market needs for new programs and/or the transformation of existing programs. Explore opportunities for regional and national growth, e.g., via expansion to new campus locations and/or leveraging remote and online modalities.
Financial Stewardship: Work with UGC Assistant Dean of Operations and University VP of Finance to develop and manage the budget, allocating resources appropriately to achieve strategic goals. Ensure lean operating model wherein the College remains financially self-sustaining at the UGC’s affordable tuition rate. Collaborate with Institutional Advancement to ensure that annual fundraising goals are stretching, reasonable, and aligned with strategic priorities and student support needs.
Institutional Leadership: Serve as an active member of University leadership team including President’s Cabinet and Academic Cabinet. Contribute and model proactive and strategic thought leadership, student-centeredness, collaborative spirit, team leadership, and equity mindset to advance university planning and execution. Serve as a role model ambassador of NLU. Perform other duties and lead additional special initiatives as assigned.

Qualifications

Credentials and Experience:

Earned doctorate in educational leadership, business administration, human services, or a related field required.
Minimum of five years in leadership capacity with record of increasing responsibility.
Demonstrated capacity for strategic leadership; the ability to move an organization forward, including supervision of large, cross-functional, and senior teams.
A record of academic achievements including teaching and/or research supervision preferred.
Experience in business planning as well as financial and budget management.
Experience in developing community partnerships and strong relationships required, especially with community and employer partners; demonstrated ability to raise money preferred.
Familiarity with online education, technology, and its impact on pedagogy.

Competencies:

Strategic Thinking: Formulates vision and strategy for the future of the organization, while weighing diverse inputs, identifying innovative opportunities, and courageously pursuing change in service of impact. Able to get up to speed quickly on new, complex strategic challenges and contribute immediately to solving them. Ability to implement strategic plans, including performance management goals and objectives, data-informed decision making, project and change management, and proven human resource management.
Data-Driven: Able to use and analyze data to identify trends, solve problems, inform differentiated faculty and staff professional development, guide student interventions, and drive overall programmatic continuous improvement including student outcomes.
Results-Oriented: Develops and executes action plans – including roles, resources, and timelines needed to drive intended impact – and engages stakeholders and adjusts course as needed to ensure on-time and high-quality results within budget. Manages multiple priorities at a given time, able to balance competing priorities and deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
Team Leadership: Sets clear goals and works to integrate team and program needs into cohesive actions. Delegates, coaches and develops team members while inspiring them. Recognizes individual strengths and builds community through recognizing success. Handles sensitive or difficult issues with grace and confidence. Remains clear-headed, focused, and inspires others to do the same. Remains objective in the face of strong emotions. Can acknowledge strong emotions without being unduly influenced by their intensity. Exudes a collaborative management style that builds strong teams within, between, and across organizations.
Equity and Growth Mindset: Understands and demonstrates commitment to the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Consistently brings an equity mindset to the organization’s work and workplace; considers the impact of equity related issues on students, staff, faculty, and external partners.
External Awareness: Keeps informed about market conditions, competitive information, and political factors that may impact the goals and interests of the organization; Uses good judgment about when to share external information as well as who should be informed; stays up-to-date on trends and projections and sees what is on the horizon. Is seldom surprised by external factors that affect the organization.
Executive Presence: Demonstrates confidence, composure, and credibility when engaging with a range of internal and external stakeholders, in particular executive-level colleagues; Communicates clearly and concisely, and tailors messages to achieve buy-in of diverse audiences; Connects with others as an active, empathetic, and responsive listener and visionary.

ABOUT THE UNDERGRADUATE COLLEGE

The Undergraduate College (UGC) at NLU is an innovative new and growing college dedicated to the ambitious goal of being a leader in driving equity in bachelor’s degree attainment and sustainable employment - with the ultimate purpose of helping our students develop the knowledge and skills to succeed as professionals and engaged citizens, leading to positive outcomes for themselves, their families, and communities. Launched in 2015, the freshman program at NLU, also known as Pathways, scaled quickly to now enroll over 1,600 first-time undergraduate students. Pathways subsequently merged with the Undergraduate College which served adult and transfer students primarily online. The combined organization today serves over 4,500 students and comprises almost half the university. The college forecasts continued expansion and currently offers majors such as business, computer science, communications, education, psychology, social work, human services, and criminal justice. Serving approximately 75% first-generation college-goers, over 60% Pell-eligible students, and over 70% minority identifying students, the UGC was intentionally designed from the ground up to reimagine undergraduate education to be more student-ready by knocking down the most common barriers to college access, college completion, and post-college employment. The UGC’s student-centered, equity-driven model is guided by five pillars:

Equity of access for all students through affordability, flexible and convenient scheduling options (campus-based, virtual, and fully online), and broad access admissions;
Clear and well-rounded course pathways to degrees to minimize time to graduation and maximize employability;
Active, experiential, rigorous, and personalized classroom experience - led by expert faculty and fueled by innovative technologies - to facilitate student learning;
Holistic, data-informed support with personalized coaching and robust wraparound services to strengthen student persistence; and,
Embedded career preparation and placement support to ensure students walk across the graduation stage with a strong first job offer or graduate school admission in-hand.

The UGC team is currently comprised of 62 full-time faculty, 38 full-time staff, and 250+ adjunct faculty and part-time staff, with an annual operating budget of $15.5M supporting academic, student support, and career preparation work. The college operates on a lean recurring cost model of approximately $12K/student/year, as it is committed to ensuring that students receive a high-quality bachelor’s degree experience at an affordable tuition rate and that the institution is financially sustainable through tuition revenue funding. Additionally, philanthropic support of approximately $1.5 million per year funds the incubation of new innovations to advance student success as well as direct-to-student supports to enable persistence such as emergency funds and completion scholarships. Furthermore, the college remains engaged with and responsive to community needs through active consultation with multiple external advisory councils.

In its early years, the UGC has exceeded national student outcome benchmarks. It received the 2017 Online Learning Consortium’s Digital Learning Innovation Award and the 2018 Eduventures Innovation Award. It was recognized by the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2019 as #1 in growth in serving underrepresented minority students, and it is now the #1 private four-year college destination of Chicago Public School graduates. It was also recently ranked by Washington Monthly as the #4 college in the nation for empowering students’ social mobility and #2 best bang for your buck in the Midwest. While strong foundations have been built in the college, outcomes are not yet good enough, and equity gaps persist and must be closed. NLU’s team of dedicated educators is committed to continuous improvement and innovation to strengthen student outcomes, and the institution is further committed to scaling undergraduate enrollment to expand our impact across communities.

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