Job Description: The Senior Director, Online Student Success plays a critical role in shaping the educational experience for online students and the online student community.The Senior Director Online Student Success will be responsible for developing and implementing a scalable yet personalized approach to supporting the success of online students in their educational and professional objectives. This leadership position involves developing and implementing strategies to enhance student advising and support services, foster academic achievement, and ensure a positive online student experience. The ideal candidate will bring an understanding of the adult/online learner population, a blend of leadership experience in academic advising, success coaching, and retention support, strong coaching and interpersonal skills, and an agile, growth mindset. This position requires a leader who can drive strategic initiatives, leverage technology for enhanced, proactive student support, and cultivate a culture of collaboration and empowered continuous improvement.Job Responsibilities Include:
Strategic and Team Leadership: Oversee the Student Services, Advising, Retention, and Success function within OHIO Online. Develop and articulate a strategic vision for online student advising, engagement, retention, and success, in alignment with OHIO’s overall objectives. Oversee the implementation of enhanced, level-specific online advising and retention services (and technologies to support), ensuring that students receive timely and relevant guidance throughout their academic journey. Lead a team of online student success managers and their direct reports, fostering a culture of excellence, professionalism, empowerment, and innovation in delivering personalized student advising, coaching, and support at scale, while optimizing operational considerations. Effectively develop methodologies to use data to inform strategic and operational recommendations and decisions, and to set and measure progress against goals. Collaborate with Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and College Leaders to establish demand forecasting methodology to ensure enrolled online students have access to courses they need to complete their programs, support colleges in forecasting course enrollments, and enable predictable degree planning for students. Analyze data and feedback to identify areas for improvement, developing and implementing strategies to address individual and systematic challenges. Stay abreast of emerging trends and best practices in online education, advising, student success, engagement, retention, and adult learning theory to continually enhance program effectiveness.
Student Persistence, Retention, and Returns: Lead development of OHIO Online’s strategic approach to enhancing persistence, retention, and returns, including the implementation of scalable processes to identify and support at-risk students. Monitor and analyze persistence, retention, and graduation data, identifying trends and opportunities, and implementing targeted interventions to improve online student persistence and graduation rates. Implement proactive processes to support students who decide to stop-out from their programs including the pre-planning of their return plan when possible, and the continued engagement and re-engagement of stopped-out students. Foster an advising culture of support, well-being, and appreciation of the context of online students and working adults. Collaborate with Senior Director of Strategy and Operations, success advisors, online programs faculty, and leadership to establish clear communication channels and efficient processes for addressing student concerns and closed-loop feedback to support continuous improvement.
Student Engagement & Outcomes: Lead efforts to enhance overall student engagement and experience. In collaboration with the Associate Director of Online Career Services and Engagement, the Office of Student Affairs, and other internal resources, support students in fostering a sense of belonging at Ohio University and in reaching their educational and career objectives through programming, connection with campus communities and resources including the career services team. Lead the collection of student career outcomes data to assess the vocational impact of online programs and OHIO Online’s success initiatives.
Minimum Qualifications:
Master’s degree in Higher Education or related field
Minimum of 6 years of related work experience
Minimum of 3 years of supervisory or managerial experience
An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.Preferred Qualifications:
Doctoral degree
Planning Unit: Office of the ProvostDepartment: Provost OfficeApplicants may contact this person if they have questions about this position: Kari Lehman, lehmank@ohio.eduEmployment Type: full-time regularAdvertised Salary: The target salary range is $80,593 to $108,801 commensurate with the selected candidate’s education and experience while considering internal equity.Ohio University is proud to offer a robust healthcare plan that includes maternity care, transgender care, counseling and mental healthcare, prescription coverage, vision, dental, orthodontia care, and more. Our robust benefits package also includes paid holidays, sick time, personal time, a tuition waiver up to 100% for self and dependents, an excellent retirement plan with up to a 14% employer contribution, a 12-week parental leave program, adoption reimbursement, flextime and flexplace policies, an employee assistance program, access to professional development programs, and additional employee resources. Additional information is available at https://www.ohio.edu/hr/benefits.
