Program Manager - Degree Completion Specialist

Department:
Retention and Grad Initiatives

Salary: 43,000.00 to 48,900.00

Description:

• Serves as the primary case manager for students experiencing academic, financial, or enrollment challenges that may delay degree completion. Provides individualized support, monitors progress, and coordinates timely interventions.
• Supervises the Peer Assistant Leaders (PALs), including recruitment, training, scheduling, and ongoing performance guidance to ensure consistent, high-quality student outreach and service delivery.
• Conducts proactive outreach using student-success data to identify students needing assistance and to coordinate follow-up with both the specialist and the PAL team.
• Collaborates with campus partners such as Academic Advising, Financial Aid, Registrar, Student Business Services, and college offices to resolve barriers impacting student progression.
• Provides clear guidance on academic policies, degree requirements, and enrollment processes to support timely decision-making and student understanding.
• Maintains accurate case documentation, tracks student progress indicators, and prepares reports to support coordinated student-success efforts.
• Identifies trends and recommends process improvements that strengthen retention, persistence, and graduation outcomes.
• Delivers student-centered support through problem-solving, referrals, and consistent follow-up to ensure students receive timely assistance.

• Experience in higher education case management supporting students with complex academic, financial, or enrollment issues.
• Experience supervising student employees or leading peer-mentor or ambassador programs.
• Ability to work collaboratively across multiple offices to resolve student barriers and support degree completion.
• Strong data-informed decision‑making skills, including the ability to interpret student-success metrics and apply findings to outreach and case management.
• Proficiency with Excel (sorting, filtering, pivot tables, basic formulas) to support case tracking, reporting, and data review.
• Familiarity with Power BI or similar dashboard tools to review student-success trends and inform outreach strategies.
• Ability to interpret and communicate policies clearly to students, faculty, and staff.
• Strong organizational and prioritization skills with the ability to manage multiple cases, deadlines, and student‑employer workflows.
• Commitment to professionalism and confidentiality in all interactions and record‑keeping.

• Experience with EAB Navigate or similar student-success platforms.
• Experience using Power BI to review dashboards or support student-success reporting.
• Proficiency with Excel.
• Familiarity with degree‑audit systems such as People Soft or Degree Works.
• Experience supporting first-generation, transfer, or underserved student populations.
• Training in student development theory or academic advising practices.

All positions at the University of Houston-System are security-sensitive and will require a criminal history check.

The University of Houston System and its universities are Equal Opportunity Institutions. Everyone is encouraged to apply.