Director of Student Success

Job No: 497511

Full Time/Part Time:
Full-time

Location:

South Orange

Categories:
Administrator

The Director for Student Success provides college-wide leadership for undergraduate persistence, timely degree progression, academic advising operations, and coordinated student support within the College of Arts and Sciences. Reporting to the Dean, the Director oversees daily advising and academic-form workflows, manages the College's student inquiry channel, and develops data-informedretention interventions with academic departments and universitypartners. The position directs College participation in recruitment, yield, orientation, and student-success events andserves as executive producer of the Dean's Speaker Series.

The Director strengthens student outcomes and service quality through clear standards, proactive communication, cross-unit coordination,and regular assessment.

This is a College-wide student-success leadership role designed to improve the consistency, timeliness, and equity of advising,progression support, retention interventions, inquiry handling, and student-facing programming. The position works across academic departments and central offices without replacing faculty advisingresponsibilities or the formal authority of the Registrar,Financial Aid, Counseling, Disability Support Services, academicleadership, or other designated offices. The Director routinelyhandles FERPA-protected information and high-impact student matters but does not provide clinical counseling, disabilitydeterminations, legal advice, or emergency services;

urgentconcerns are referred through established university protocols.

Routine academic forms and operational decisions may be approved within delegated policy, while policy exceptions, employmentactions, contracts, and expenditures outside delegated authorityrequire approval from the appropriate university official.

• Lead daily undergraduate advising and academic-form operations for College students, including course and degree planning,major/minor exploration, registration troubleshooting, policy guidance, petitions, FERPA-compliant case documentation, referrals,and coordination of complex academic standing matters.
• Design, implement, and assess data-informed persistence and retention strategies, including early alert outreach, midtermprogress campaigns, gateway-course supports, re-registrationinitiatives, stop-out reengagement, and dashboards on persistence,credit momentum, DFW rates, and time to degree.
• Manage the College's student advice and question channel,including inquiry triage, referral and escalation pathways,service-level standards, knowledge base and FAQ maintenance,response quality monitoring, and analysis of inquiry themes to improve service and communication.
• Direct College programming and logistics for Open House, Pirate Adventure, Admitted Student Days, and other recruitment, yield, and orientation events in partnership with Admissions, Marketing and Communications, departments, faculty, staff, and studentambassadors.
• Serve as executive producer of the Dean's Speaker Series and related student programming, coordinating themes, speakers,invitations, contracts, honoraria, budgets, venues, audiovisualservices, marketing, accessibility, run-of-show, riskconsiderations, and assessment.
• Lead student-success communications, advisor training, and knowledge management by developing deadline and policycommunications, faculty/staff toolkits, advising guides, webpages,FAQs, and service procedures; convene the College Student Success Council and advance continuous improvement.

• Master's Degree in Higher Education Administration, Student Affairs, Counseling, Education, or a related field; a master's inan Arts and Sciences discipline with substantial student-services experience may also be considered.
• At least five years of progressively responsible higher-education experience in undergraduate advising, student success, retention,or a closely related student service function. Experience must include interpreting academic policy, managing complex student cases, coordinating cross-functional initiatives, using data toimprove outcomes, and communicating with diverse student populations. Event leadership and functional supervision are strongly preferred.
• Advanced working knowledge of undergraduate advising, student development, academic policies and degree requirements, FERPA,referral protocols, retention practices, equitable student…