"Director of Health Professions Advising"

Director of Health Professions Advising

Company:
Villanova University

Job Location:
Villanova, 19085

Category:
Academic Advising

Type:
Full-Time

Posting Number: 20254548S

Location
Villanova, PA

Work Schedule: full-time/12-months

Department: 129-A&S Office for Undergraduate Students

Position Summary

Why work at Villanova? Join a mission-driven organization. Since Villanova University's founding in 1842, we have been inspired by the values of truth, unity, and love, and are a community dedicated to service to others. Villanova has been included among the nation's best colleges and universities. VU's inclusion again in U.S. News & World Report's 2025 "Best Colleges" rankings is another indication of the University's continued prominence and forward momentum. Villanova's most precious asset is our people. As an employee, you will receive a holistic benefits package, generous paid time off, a competitive retirement savings plan, flexible work options, wellness programs including gym membership, professional development, tuition assistance, and more.

The Director of Health Professions Advising is responsible for the overall leadership and management of the advising services and professional development support for undergraduate students and alumni who are pursuing admittance to medical, dental, physician assistant, PT, OT, and other health-related professional graduate schools. The Director of Health Professions Advising (HPA) leads and manages all advising and professional development services for undergraduate students and alumni seeking admission to health professional graduate schools (e.g., medical, dental, PA, PT, OT).

Reporting to the Office for Professional Development (in the Ellis Center in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences), the Director is responsible for strategic planning, budget management, staff supervision, program development, and assessment. This role requires establishing crucial internal and external partnerships to advocate for student success, supporting diversity initiatives, and delivering effective pre-professional advising, workshops, educational programs, and partnerships with external professional schools that align with the University's mission.

Villanova is a Catholic university sponsored by the Augustinian Order. The University is an equal opportunity employer and seeks candidates who understand, respect and can contribute to the University's mission and values.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Director provides comprehensive guidance and support to undergraduate students and alumni applying to medical, dental, and other health related schools.

• Application Management: The Director oversees the Health Professions Letter Packet Process for approximately 120 applicants annually.
• Applicant Advising & Coaching: The Director provides individual advising to assess applicant readiness and coaches students through every phase of the application cycle. Key responsibilities include reviewing transcripts, personal statements, work/activity entries, exam scores, and target school lists.
• Data Analysis & Reporting: The Director tracks interview and acceptance data throughout the application cycle and reports this essential data to college leadership and campus partners.

Health Professions Student Application Support Services

• Responsible for guiding eligible applicants to medical and dental school. Approximately 120 undergraduate students and alumni annually participate in the Health Professions Letter Packet Process.
• Advises and coaches applicants through every step of the application process to help them assess their applicant readiness, including reviewing their transcript(s), applicant questionnaire, work/activities, personal statement, exam scores, and potential schools of interest.
• (With assistance from other members of the Professional Development team) compiles all the letters of recommendation collected for a student and adds a cover letter from the HPA office articulating the academic rigor of a Villanova education. The Director submits these letter packets to their designated application portal(s).
• Tracks the interview and acceptance data for every student throughout the application cycle and shares that data with college leadership and campus partners.

Advising Pre-Health Advising and Support

• Direct Advising: Provide pre-professional advising to junior and senior undergraduates, alumni, and students in the Pre-Health Certificate Program (College of Professional Studies).
• Support for Underrepresented Students: Actively seeks out and implements strategies to support pre-health students from underrepresented groups.
• Advising Resource Management: Annually update all official advising materials (print and online guides) and ensure distribution to all academic advisors across the university.
• Serve as the official advisor of record for key pre-health student organizations, including the Pre-Medical Club, Pre-Dental Student Association, Pre-Vet Club, Pre-PA Club, Global Medical Brigades, and Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED) Pre-Health Honor Society.
• Oversee, manage, and produce the spring induction ceremony for AED. Work directly with student organization executive boards to plan programming and speaker events.

Internal and External Relations and Outreach

• Manage comprehensive student programming, including application readiness workshops, interview training, and applicant Q&A sessions.
• Coordinate the biennial Health Professions School Expo, successfully engaging 75 academic programs and over 350 regional student registrants.
• Represent the program at recruitment events, delivering presentations to prospective and admitted students and families.
• Maintain crucial internal liaison relationships (e.g., academic departments, Career Center) and external relationships with health professions schools to secure affiliation agreements and advocate for applicants.
• Direct external communications, including a weekly student newsfeed, social media posts, and networking events featuring professional representatives.
• Facilitate alumni networking and engagement in partnership with the Career Center and Alumni Affairs.
• Participate in professional development via active membership in NAAHP, NEAAHP, and the Philadelphia LAN.

Program Operations

• Develop the strategic vision for the pre-health enterprise, organizes the calendar of events for each semester, runs bi-weekly staff meetings to provide direction and oversight to the staff and students collegially to implement day-to-day program operations, successfully plan and manage a myriad of events, and coordinate information delivery with university offices.
• Work closely with Ellis Center systems management team to ensure efficient utilization of university systems that support the program including: SLATE, Blackboard, Handshake, Banner, and other systems, as needed.
• Provide budget projections including managing events, providing financial resources for health professions advisors for ongoing professional development, organizational memberships, travel, subscriptions, and educational materials to maintain and enhance competence.
• Work collaboratively with Ellis Center Offices and the Career Center to provide a system that identifies and tracks health professions students, which is accessible to health professions advisor(s), and that makes it possible to compile data and analyze trends in the health professions student population.
• Provide an annual report to the Dean's Office and Career Center.

Supervision and Management of Staff

• Oversees and supervise the Assistant Director and student workers. An additional assistant director level position for the team has been requested for the future.

Minimum Qualifications

Formal Education:

• Master's degree required.

Work Experience:

• Six to eight years of academic advising experience.
• Three years of health professions advising experience, with more experience desired.

Specific Job Knowledge:

• Knowledge/experience working with health professional program application systems (i.e. AMCAS, AADSAS, AACOMAS, CASPA, etc.) is required.
• Experience presenting to college-level audiences is required.

Work Skills:

• Advanced writing skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively and accurately with administrators, faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, community partners, and other stakeholders.
• Ability to analyze data.
• Ability to use independent judgment and show attention to detail.
• Strong commitment to quality in a service and student-centered environment.
• Experience in leadership position; ability to supervise, facilitate, and motivate diverse groups of employees/students/coworkers.
• Ability to foster an inclusive and collegial work environment.

Equipment Knowledge:

• Familiarity with Microsoft office suite and student database systems.

Preferred Qualifications

Work Experience:

• Teaching college-level professional development or advising courses is strongly preferred.

Salary Posting Information

This position falls within salaried grade 16 and the range for this position is $71,700-$89,600. The final salary will be determined with consideration of several factors including the selected candidate's qualifications, department budget availability, market data, and internal equity.