Director, Tartan Scholars Program - Office of the Vice Provost for Education

Carnegie Mellon University invites applications for the position of Director of the Tartan Scholars Program. The Director provides the strategic vision, leadership, and programmatic stewardship for CMU's flagship initiative dedicated to widening access and enhancing success for high-achieving undergraduate students from limited-resource backgrounds.

Since 2019, the Tartan Scholars program has worked to meet the unique needs of high-achieving undergraduate student leaders from limited resource backgrounds through a rich network of academic, social and financial support, which includes early and direct access to CMU leadership, mentorship and coaching opportunities, community building experiences, and more. The program is supported by a transformative gift from the Posner Foundation that established a permanent endowment to provide a comprehensive four-year student success journey for Tartan Scholars.

Rather than acting as an isolated institutional planner, the Director functions as an active coordinator and executor who collaborates with campus stakeholders to implement the program's infrastructure, engages closely with the scholars, and champions a community experience where students can holistically thrive. The Director utilizes data-informed decision-making and equity-minded practices to address opportunity gaps, elevate student voices, and foster a profound sense of community and belonging among academically gifted students who have experienced resource disparities prior to enrollment.

This is an excellent opportunity for an educational professional who thrives in an interesting, fast-paced, and challenging work environment.

Core responsibilities include:

1. Academic Success & Curricular Scaffolding

• Academic Support: Leverage an established comprehensive academic support framework that enables scholars to master the rigors of CMU's world-class, highly demanding curriculum and demystifies the "hidden curriculum" of higher education;
• Academic Interventions: Support cohort-wide milestones and individual student academic journeys; in collaboration with the Student Academic Success Center, design, implement and scale key interventions, including specialized math primers, tutoring networks, and localized learning cohorts.
• Consultative Program Management: Drive a collaborative, comprehensive process of assessment and maintenance, requiring high levels of coordination and consultation with CMU partners and a depth of knowledge regarding relevant student success scholarship.

2. Student Advocacy and Holistic Coordinated Support

• Proactive Support Ecosystem: Enable a coordinated and comprehensive system of holistic student support that is highly collaborative and consultative, requiring ongoing relationship management with internal stakeholders and a depth of knowledge regarding relevant student success scholarship.
• Campus Partnerships: Cultivate deep strategic alliances across divisional boundaries, notably with Enrollment Management, Undergraduate Admissions, Student Affairs, the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion, and the individual undergraduate colleges. Partner with campus care coordination groups to maintain seamless, cross-divisional networks of care.
• Material & Emergency Relief Coordination: Coordinate cross-departmental connections to manage emergency grants, technology lending pools, and student-enterprise resources like professional attire collections.

3. Community Building, Belonging, and Student-Forward Leadership

• Signature Traditions: Oversee the operational delivery of a meaningful cohort experience marked by hallmark transition events and traditions--such as pre-fall welcome experiences, summer connections, and cohort meetings--across the span of the undergraduate journey.
• Peer Mentorship Infrastructure: Develop, refine, and maintain a structured leadership development program for student contributors that facilitates an effective and meaningful peer mentorship model.
• Student-Forward Governance: Maintain an ongoing Student Advisory Committee, ensuring transparent integration of student feedback into leadership searches, strategic choices, and daily programming.

4. Personnel Supervision & Operational Excellence

• Personnel Management: Supervise, coach, and manage professional program staff to ensure significant and sustained student-facing engagement.
• Metric Tracking and Assessment: Create, implement, and maintain administrative processes and procedures related to tracking student persistence, milestone progression, and graduation rates. Design and execute ongoing assessment protocols for all programs under the Director's purview to evaluate overall programmatic efficacy. Manage logistics, analyze student feedback, and use data to adjust daily operational supports.
• Advisory and Steering Committees: Periodically report on Tartan Scholars program activities and outcomes to various university-level governance committees. Chair the Tartan Scholars Advisory Committee, a representative group of community partners deeply committed to the Tartan Scholars program.

5. Service to the University Community

• Institutional Engagement: Participate in university-wide committees, task forces, and cross-campus working groups.
• Community Volunteering: Volunteer at university-wide initiatives and cornerstone events that provide professional and personal development while actively engaging in the vibrant life of the broader institution.

Adaptability, excellence, and passion are vital qualities within Carnegie Mellon University. We are in search of a team member who can effectively interact with a varied population of internal and external partners at a high level of integrity. We are looking for someone who shares our values and who will support the mission of the university through their work.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Education: Master's degree in education, higher education, leadership development, counseling, or a closely related field.
• Experience: 5+ years of relevant professional work experience demonstrating progressive leadership within a higher education institution.
• Required Skills: Strong oral and written communication skills; direct experience with staff supervision and leading student-facing initiatives.
• A combination of education and relevant experience from which comparable knowledge is demonstrated may be considered.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Education: Master's degree in higher education administration, leadership development, counseling, or a related field--explicitly incorporating a distinct knowledge of student development and learning theory.
• Experience: 7+ years of relevant work experience showing progressive leadership within higher education.
• Specialized Track Record: An expansive, documented record of individual student advocacy, successful supervision of full-time professional staff, and direct hands-on experience with support program assessment and data management.

Requirements: Successful pre-employment background check

Posted: 2026-06-14