Western Governors University

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.. Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals.. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.. As the Associate Dean and Program Director of one or more academic programs in WGU’s School of Business, you will be a subject matter expert and a respected academic business leader in driving the education and successful outcomes of students in your field.. As an equal opportunity employer, WGU recognizes that our strength lies in our people.

associate dean

The salary range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is: Pay Range: $117,400.00 - $211,300.00 If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career. Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families. Job Profile Summary: As the Associate Dean and Program Director of one or more academic programs in WGU’s School of Business, you will be a subject matter expert and a respected academic business leader in driving the education and successful outcomes of students in your field. In collaboration with college and university leadership, other departments, and other WGU organizations, you will have end-to-end responsibility of (a) growing your programs with new, market relevant, and innovative competency based program offerings, (b) identifying and supporting the implementation industry partnerships and go-to-market strategies to bring the right students and employers to these programs, and (c) delivering great educational outcomes for these students by directly managing the instructional faculty and leveraging the coaching and mentoring faculty to drive student success. Your success will be measured in terms of planning, building, delivering and scaling the right programs profitably that cater to our underserved student population with a high-level of retention and ROI for the students. In this role, you will report to the Vice President and Dean of the Department. Essential Functions and Responsibilities: <ul><li>P&L ownership experience with focus on achieving WGU contribution margins and net new student growth</li><li>Program management and program marketing experience in launching new and revised programs into the education market and operating programs using data and insights; data-driven portfolio management experience</li><li>Drive a culture of continuous experimentation, measurement, and learning from data to rapidly improve the quality and delivery to students</li><li>Strong people leader to directly or indirectly lead a diverse team of people including program managers, instructional faculty, and student coaches/mentors</li><li>Influences Others and Communicates Effectively: Communicates to improve and promote teamwork, decision making, and problem solving. Listens and responds effectively to the reactions and positions of others and encourages the expression of diverse ideas and opinions. Adjusts message and style to fit the audience. Provides timely and helpful feedback. Communicates appropriately to win support with all audiences.</li><li>Collaborates: Works cooperatively with others across the organization to achieve shared objectives. Represents own interests while being fair to others and their areas. Partners with others to get work done. Credits others for their contributions and accomplishments. Gains buy-in, trust and support of others.</li><li>Manages Ambiguity: Deals comfortably with the uncertainty of change. Effectively handles risk. Can decide to act without the total picture. Is calm and productive, even when things are up in the air. Deals constructively with problems that do not have clear solutions or outcomes.</li><li>Drives for Results: Has a strong outcomes-based orientation. Persists in accomplishing objectives despite obstacles and setbacks. Has a track record of successfully achieving goals. Pushes self and helps others achieve results. Has a continuous improvement mindset.</li><li>Builds Effective Teams: Forms teams with appropriate and diverse mixes of styles, perspectives, and experience. Establishes common objectives and a shared mindset. Creates a feeling of belonging and strong team morale. Shares wins and rewards team efforts. Fosters open dialogue and collaboration among the team. Creates a team that works well cross-functionally.</li><li>Organizational Learning: Learns quickly when facing new situations. Experiments to find new solutions. Takes on challenges of unfamiliar tasks. Extracts lessons-learned from failures and mistakes. Expands knowledge base through ongoing curiosity.</li><li>Performs other related duties as assigned. </li></ul>Knowledge, Skill and Abilities: <ul><li>Deep understanding of how students learn and combining innovative curriculum and student support strategies to drive student success and employability</li><li>Customer and student obsession with a focus on driving successful outcomes for them</li><li>Industry or academic leader in the discipline</li><li>Understanding of the industry trends, job opportunities, and educational market trends in the discipline</li><li>Credible voice of the department in external partnerships and presentation opportunities</li><li>Strong people leader to directly or indirectly lead a diverse team of people including academic program leaders, instructional faculty, and student coaches/mentors</li><li>Execution focus with the ability to dive-deep and live in the details with a fast-paced weekly execution cadence</li><li>Ability to organize and coordinate activities and results across cross-functional teams</li><li>Ability to coach and develop direct reports</li><li>Ability to collaborate with and manage teams, including those in a remote environment, while demonstrating excellence, integrity, and respect</li><li>Ability to work effectively in a highly matrixed organization</li><li>Ability to build relationships and influence at all levels, both internally and externally</li><li>Ability to be an agent of change in a rapidly changing environment</li><li>Proven ability to analyze data to identify trends and drive innovation</li><li>Sound judgement and decision-making skills</li><li>Strong oral and written communication skills </li></ul>Competencies: Organizational Impact: <ul><li>Develops and recommends plan to accomplish division or job area responsibilities that align with the department.</li><li>Performance affects department results. Work requires extensive knowledge of the University to recognize impact of decisions.</li><li>Responsible for compiling data to produce a budget or a portion of a budget for a department or job area. </li></ul>Problem Solving & Decision Making: <ul><li>Responsible for making significant improvements to processes, programs, and systems to enhance the outcomes of the division or job area.</li><li>May create and direct policy decisions within scope of responsibility. Accountable for coordinating activities and maintaining relationships with external parties as needed.</li><li>Problems faced are numerous and undefined, and require detailed information gathering, analysis, and prior experience. Solutions to problems typically affect multiple departments. </li></ul>Communication & Influence: <ul><li>Represents the division or job area as the primary internal contact for operations.</li><li>Influences others to accept the division or job area’s views, practices, concepts, and approaches. Interacts with equivalent level management concerning matters of significance to the University.</li><li>Conducts briefings with senior leadership to gain approval. </li></ul>Leadership & Talent Management <ul><li>Manages teams of managers and professionals. Responsible for creating workforce and staffing plans for area. Directly oversees hiring, firing, promotion, performance management, employee training, and other personnel decisions of significance within the division or job area.</li><li>May spend time as completing functional tasks, but primarily achieves goals through leading a team. </li></ul>Job Qualifications: Minimum Qualifications: <ul><li>Master's degree in relevant area from an accredited institution</li><li>10 years relevant experience (with 5 years in senior leadership experience with hands-on experience in hiring, managing, and scaling significant teams) In lieu of a Master's degree a Bachelor's degree + 13 years relevant experience may be considered if candidates possess the necessary skills and knowledge required for the position. </li></ul>Preferred Qualifications: <ul><li>PhD in relevant area from an accredited institution</li><li>Experience in higher education  </li><li>Experience in developing online education programs and/or developing and scaling rapidly changing organizations/programs</li><li>Experience in developing curriculum and/or high-stakes assessments  </li><li>Demonstrated success in change management, and bringing order and structure to complex situations  </li></ul>Physical Requirements: <ul><li>Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.</li><li>Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times. </li></ul>#DE&I As an equal opportunity employer, WGU recognizes that our strength lies in our people. We are committed to diversity.

START NEW SEARCH