Director of Undergraduate Career Development

Job Summary:

Drives the career development curriculum for all undergraduate students with a goal of students graduating with the skills and professional network to obtain meaningful, sustainable employment. This includes designing a best-in-class multi-year undergraduate curriculum focused on developing critical non-cognitive and career readiness skills (e.g., teamwork, responding to feedback, project planning, etc.) in all students; training and supporting all faculty who teach this curriculum; organizing aligned career exposure opportunities to ensure real-world relevance in the classroom curriculum (e.g., mock interview sessions, visits from guest speakers, etc.); and, managing NLU's partnership with the nonprofit Braven that will supplement NLU career preparation efforts with students. Each year, over 2,000 students will be enrolled in career coursework overseen by this Director. In addition, this position will regularly monitor implementation progress and outcomes to ensure continuous improvement with the goal of maximizing student success in college and career. The Director will collaborate closely across the Undergraduate College team, as well as with teams across NLU such as the Career Bridge department. The Director will have a dotted line to the Executive Director of Career Development and will work closely with the Career Bridge team on internships, student development, and curricular enhancement. They will also liaise regularly with senior-level external partners and funders as a lead representative of the Undergraduate College's career preparation strategy. Additionally, this Director will own critical university strategic projects beyond the scope of Career Development. This includes designing the end-to-end vision of the NLU Writing Center to launch in the year ahead, including establishing the strategy, organization structure including integration/collaboration with related units in NLU, 3 year goals, budget requirements to ramp up over time, and funder pitch. This further includes additional special projects at the discretion of the VP/Dean that require strong exceptional project management, written and verbal communication, strategic thinking, and independent ownership and quality of work.

You are: Driven to Succeed

You are energetic and passionate about a diverse student body that includes many first-generation students. To be successful teaching in this program, you must be committed to excellence in teaching and learning in Higher Education. The position requires you to be agile, creative, and engaging while offering an unparalleled experience to undergraduate students. Enthusiastic candidates have the belief that all students can be successful students. As an active team member, you believe in a supportive environment and a student-driven and data-informed culture.

You are ready to: Make an Impact

Each and every day, our Undergraduate College changes lives. You want to be a part of that meaningful innovation. You are someone that will always look for creative ways for students to earn success. We know this work is challenging, but we are in it together.

You are: an experienced classroom educator with content knowledge of career development best practices, who is passionate about building students' career skills and confidence. You have made equity and inclusion a priority in your work and believe that all students, when given the opportunity, can achieve success. You also have 3-5 years of applied career development experience through professional leadership roles and can apply current industry trends to classroom instructional practices.

To be successful in this program, you must be committed to excellence in teaching and learning in higher education. The position requires you to be agile, creative, and engaging while offering an innovative, practice based curriculum and an unparalleled experience to undergraduate students. You believe in a supportive environment, a strengths-based approach to learning, and a student-driven culture. As an active team member, working closely with both internal and external partners, you are open to continued learning and self-reflection.

NLU UGC CORE COMPETENCIES

Student-Focused: Make decisions based on what is best for students with the belief that when all students have access, resources and support, they are empowered to achieve success.

• Expect Excellence: Hold high expectations for our students and for the adults to serve them and hold ourselves accountable for achieving excellence.

• Personalized Support: Take a holistic approach to providing individualized support that encourages students to realize their full potential in college and beyond.

• Data-Driven, Collaborative Environment: Work together as a unified team, utilizing real-time data and technology to adapt to student needs.

• Continuous Improvement and Innovation: Remain agile and open to changes and new ideas-incorporating data as well as student, faculty and administration voice-to ensure that we are continuously learning, improving, and innovating in all aspects of the study

• Design best-in-class, multi-year non-cognitive and career readiness skills curriculum for the Undergraduate College's signature Career Development coursework, rooted in research-based practices and real-world practicality, and incorporating clear measures of student learning. Will serve over 800 students annually (with > 30 instructors under oversight).
• Create, attend and actively participate in training opportunities to build a stronger career curriculum model with all instructors. Convene all career faculty regularly as a professional learning community to ensure a collaborative, team approach to ensuring an optimal student experience, and to ensure continuous learning and improvement in the program. Work closely with Career Bridge on internship placement, meeting regularly with the team to foster a culture of collaboration and strategic planning.
• Engage industry partners to support career readiness student learning experiences (e.g., guest speakers, mock interviews, community service, internships), and serve as external ambassador for the program to build awareness of the model.
• Lead high-impact partnerships to strengthen the career readiness of all Pathways students.
• Maintain current and active knowledge in the expertise area in career training for undergraduate students. Regularly create and maintain a hiring network in subject area creating a pool of hiring options, reviewing candidates, perform initial interviews and make recommendations for hire to Dean.

• Master's degree in General Education disciplines or related field with 18 graduate hours in the discipline for which you are applying to teach. PhD credentials preferred.
• Eight plus (8+) years professional experience, including experience in both teaching and administrative roles. Experience with digital tools for teaching, teaching in either online or blended/hybrid formats, and teaching to students of diverse backgrounds and abilities strongly preferred.
• Seven to ten (7-10) years of experience as a Career Development Manger, teacher, Academic Leader, Project Manager, or Team Leader.
• Experience developing and teaching Writing curriculum and supporting students of a variety of preparation levels in strengthening their writing skills.
• Autonomy/Initiative/Self-Direction: Recognizes opportunities and initiates actions to capitalize on them. Comes across as confident and well-prepared when making group presentations. Makes effective use of visual aids or presentation software and looks at ease while handling questions from the audience. His/her presentations hold the audience's attention and tend to be the right length for the amount of information covered. This is in contrast to those who appear unprepared, attempt to cover too much material, use jargon or visual aids that fail to augment the presentation or come across as ill at ease when addressing questions from the audience. Looks for new and productive ways to make an impact. Demonstrates this characteristic when it comes to generating new ideas or processes, capitalizing on new business opportunities, seeking out and taking on increasing responsibility or resolving problems as they occur. Uses sound judgment about when to take action and when to seek guidance or permission.
• Business job-specific knowledge: Possesses sufficient job skills and knowledge to perform the job in a competent manner. Is able to demonstrate skills and knowledge in day-to-day situations.
• Leadership: Articulates a vision that others choose to follow. Models behaviors expected of others and inspires others to undertake challenging tasks and projects.
• Coaching and Developing Others: Uses varied and appropriate measures of student progress and achievement level (e.g., does not rely on a single testing format). Assessment methods (e.g., quizzes, tests and other progress indicators) provide fair, accurate and meaningful criteria for measuring academic achievement levels. Assesses student growth beyond the realm of academic knowledge or problem-solving (e.g., assesses character development, ability to work on teams, etc.).
• Interpersonal Communication: Communicates effectively and appropriately. Uses good judgement as to what to communicate to whom as well as the best way to get that accomplished. Speaks in a clear and credible manner, selecting the right tone for the situation and audience. Listens to others and allows them to make their point.

NLU Inclusion Statement:

National Louis University is deeply committed to serving its community, advancing access and equity, and ensuring that all individuals are welcomed and valued. We are dedicated to fostering a culture where diversity, equity, and inclusion remain at the core of who we are. These are more than just words to us: they are truly a way of life for the NLU community. We recognize that differences in abilities, age, ethnicity, gender (identity and expression), race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and background bring richness to our work environment. We affirm diverse perspectives, innovative contributions, and authentic presentations of self from every member within the NLU community. We believe inclusion is grounded in the actions we intentionally take each day. Our goal is to inspire and empower NLU employees and community members to cultivate an environment where we collectively focus on uplifting and advancing our institutional culture.