Specialist - Advisor-Continuing

Working/Functional Title

First Generation Strategic Initiatives Manager

About Undergraduate Education at Michigan State University

Undergraduate Education at Michigan State University advances institutional efforts to support undergraduate student success, academic innovation, access, and inclusive excellence. Through strategic leadership, collaboration, and evidence-based practice, Undergraduate Education works to improve the undergraduate experience and advance student outcomes across the university.

Undergraduate Education plays a key role in advancing MSU's next chapter in student success through the development of the newly approved Spartan Success Center (SSC). The Spartan Success Center represents a major institutional investment in undergraduate persistence, success, and belonging ported by a $5.2 million renovation of approximately 12,500 square feet in the Hannah Administration Building, the center will serve as a centralized hub for academic advising, career services, success coaches, academic support and other student success and wellbeing units, with a particular emphasis on first-generation and transfer students.

The center offers a pivotal opportunity to align and amplify student success efforts across campus focused on the five areas of student success. It will serve as a visible platform for strengthening coordination, advancing equity‑minded practice, increasing retention, and demonstrating MSU’s commitment to holistic, institution‑wide student support.

Reporting to the Assistant Dean for Student Success Operations and Policy, the First‑Generation Strategic Initiatives Manager provides strategic leadership, vision, and operational oversight for university‑wide efforts supporting ~ 10,000 first‑generation undergraduate students at Michigan State University in order to increase retention and close opportunity gaps. Serving within the Office of Undergraduate Education, this role serves the voice of First‑Gen students for initiatives and policies, along with operations associated with Spartan Success Center.

This position will work in close partnership with leadership of the Transfer Student Success Center to ensure a coherent, equitable, and student‑centered experience across the undergraduate lifecycle.

The First‑Generation Strategic Initiatives Manager leads identity‑affirming, asset‑based programming and institutional strategies that remove structural barriers, demystify higher education systems, promote health and wellbeing and strengthen belonging, persistence, and degree completion for first‑generation students. This role balances population‑specific leadership for retention and success with shared accountability for the overall Spartan Success Center mission, ensuring that no student experiences institutional structure as a barrier to their success.

• Advance an asset‑based, non‑deficit approach to first‑generation student success that recognizes cultural wealth, resilience, and family/supporter systems.
• Develop, advise, and evaluate activities devoted to increasing the retention of first‑generation college students, aligned with our 5 opportunity areas of success (Self‑Discovery of Purpose, Educational Success, Developing Sense of Belonging, contributing to an Empowered Community, and Developing Wellbeing).
• Design, advise, and monitor first‑generation student academic progress and support across key transition points, including pre‑entry, arrival and orientation, early‑term adjustment, mid‑career momentum, critical transitions, near completion and guidance for reentry.
• Lead advocacy efforts for policies, practices, and systems that advance equity and improve outcomes for first‑generation students in academic planning and educational decision‑making.
• Lead initiatives and initiate referrals and coordinated connections to campus resources that demystify the hidden curriculum, strengthen institutional navigation, and build academic and professional confidence for first‑generation students.
• Provide leadership and management of the First‑Generation Student Success…