Student Services Manager - Assistant Director of Success; Academic Advisement

Position: Student Services Manager - Assistant Director of First Year Success (Academic Advisement)
Assistant Director, First-Year Success (Inaugural Position)

Mesa Community College invites applications for and seeks a strategic, student-centered leader to serve as its first inaugural Assistant Director of First-Year Success. This inaugural leadership role will design, launch, and institutionalize a comprehensive first-year program that supports students from entry through the completion of their first year.

This position represents a critical investment in the college's long-term student success and enrollment stability strategy. The position will build the program from the ground up-coordinating multiple first-year initiatives and new student orientation, supporting early alert and intervention for first-year students, and supervising retention coaches-while aligning academic and student support services to ensure a strong, equitable start for all students.

Position Overview

Reporting to the Director, Academic Advising (or designee), the Assistant Director of First-Year Success provides college-wide strategic and operational leadership for first-year experience, new-student orientation, early academic momentum, and retention initiatives. As an inaugural role, this position requires a leader who can translate vision into operational reality, build cross-functional partnerships, and establish sustainable structures, processes, and assessment practices.

The Assistant Director will collaborate closely with Academic Affairs, faculty leadership, Enrollment Services, Institutional Research, Information Technology, and Student Affairs units to ensure first-year success is embedded as a shared institutional responsibility. The role has a substantial impact on the success of college-wide first-year initiatives and provides oversight and management of signature first-year programs and leading a team of retention specialist positions.

Key Responsibilities

* Design and implement a comprehensive first-year success framework, including vision, goals, new-student orientation, onboarding, early-term retention milestones and strategies, and measurable outcomes aligned with guided pathways principles.

* Build program infrastructure from the ground up, including staffing models, workflows, communication strategies, and assessment processes.

Coordinate and continuously improve new student orientation and related transition programming.

* Lead and align first-year programming such as success workshops, seminars, learning communities, and engagement initiatives.

* Support, help operationalize, and scale retention and early alert systems for first-year students, integrate academic progress monitoring, case management, intervention escalation protocols, and coordinate timely outreach and intervention with faculty, advisors, and support services.

* Partner with academic leadership and faculty to embed first-year success strategies into gateway courses and programs.

* Lead cross-functional collaboration across divisions (Academic Affairs, Student Services, Enrollment Management, Institutional Research) to align onboarding, advising, and support services for new students.

* Use quantitative and qualitative data, dashboards, and KPIs to assess first-year outcomes and guide continuous improvement.

* Develop and produce assessment reports, accreditation evidence, and executive-level summaries demonstrating institutional effectiveness.

* Supervise, train, and evaluate retention coaches, ensuring consistent, proactive, and equity-minded coaching practices to support first-year and new-student success initiatives, while fostering accountability, consistency, and professional growth.

* Ensure first-year programs are equity-minded, student-centered, and scalable, with attention to diverse student populations including first-generation, adult, and historically underserved students.

* Represent first-year success initiatives in college-wide planning, enrollment management, and accreditation activities.

Essential Functions

All Student Affairs positions require consistent, full on-site attendance and engagement as an essential job function in order to provide in-person student affairs services, including but not limited to: student advising,…