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Assistant Director for Living-Learning Programs

Job Description

How to Apply

A current cover letter and resume are required for consideration for this position. In the cover letter, in two pages or less, please let us know how this role aligns with your career aspirations and experiences. Submit both a cover letter and a resume as one PDF file through the U-M careers website.  

Summary

The Assistant Director for Living-Learning Programs (LLP) provides vision, supervision, and leadership within an integrated portfolio of work that connects CSP’s living-learning programs (Summer Bridge Scholars Program and Bridge Scholars Plus), student outreach and support, and data informed practices in pursuit of CSP’s vision of being the national standard for anti-racist, inclusive, and accessible education. They are responsible for leading a team of full-time professionals and part-time paraprofessionals, liaising with campus partners, and developing and assessing CSP’s living-learning programs. 

The CSP leadership team works together to develop, implement, evaluate, and assess courses, services, and processes that promote success and sense of belonging among all members of the CSP community—students, staff, and faculty. As a member of the CSP leadership team, the Assistant Director for Living-Learning Programs contributes to the strategic direction of CSP by pairing area-specific expertise with cross-organizational leadership and collaboration.

This position works primarily on-campus and reports directly to the CSP Director. They will coach and supervise a team of full-time professionals. 

The expected start date is mid June 2023.

Who We Are

Forged out of three decades of organized, direct action led by the Black Action Movement (BAM), the Comprehensive Studies Program (CSP) is a learning community and academic unit serving over 3,000 undergraduate students annually, many of whom identify with populations that have been historically underrepresented in U.S. higher education. CSP students are identified through the highly selective U-M admissions process and are the top students in their home communities. First-time first-year and transfer students are admitted to CSP in the spring, summer, fall, and winter terms. Students who are not admitted to CSP may choose to become a CSP affiliate at any point in their undergraduate career.  

CSP sits within LSA’s Division of Undergraduate Education and provides comprehensive academic support to U-M students through LSA courses, holistic academic advising, academic and co-curricular programming, the Summer Bridge Scholars Program, Bridge Scholars Plus and student support services that utilize high-impact, inclusive practices to encourage student agency and engagement.

As an academic program rooted in student activism and coalition building in the service of educational and social transformation, CSP’s mission is three-fold: 

  • To foster a supportive learning community that empowers students to take ownership of their learning, and be leaders in and beyond the university
  • To advocate for the recruitment, matriculation, and persistence of minoritized student populations
  • To be leading practitioners of anti-racist, inclusive, and accessible education

CSP is responsible for all curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular components of the Summer Bridge Scholars Program (SBSP). Created in 1975, SBSP is a 7-week residential academic program that supports 350 talented students as they advance from high school to the University of Michigan. During these 7 weeks, students engage in highly collaborative, rigorous U-M coursework, near-peer and scholar-teacher models of teaching and learning, social and co-curricular opportunities led by peer mentors, and collaborative individual and group advising led by CSP academic advisors. By all accounts, this holistic model of learning enables SBSP scholars to enter the fall semester of their first year at U-M with a competitive edge.

SBSP scholars routinely report that participation in SBSP creates a strong sense of belonging and community, but their feelings of connectedness with U-M decrease when they join the larger campus community in the fall semester. For decades scholars have requested that the residential experience they enjoy in their first summer term be extended into the fall in the form of an SBSP residential learning community. CSP, the LSA Undergraduate Education, and the Division of Student Life will deliver on students’ requests by launching a new academic year living-learning program, Bridge Scholars Plus, for 150 scholars in fall 2023.

CSP is organized into four areas: 

  • Living-learning programs
  • Operations
  • Advising and outreach
  • Teaching and learning

Learn more about CSP at www.lsa.umich.edu/csp.

Responsibilities*

Strategic Leadership of CSP Living-Learning Programs (50%)
Administrative Oversight and Management of CSP Living-Learning Programs

  • Oversee the design and implementation of all extracurricular components of CSP’s living-learning programs
  • Ensure strategic collaboration between the living-learning programs team and the other areas of CSP in the execution of CSP LLPs: academic advising, operations, teaching and learning
  • Manage LLP annual programming and staffing budgets

Student Recruitment and Yield

  • Design strategic plans for maximizing the yield rate of students admitted to the Summer Bridge Scholars Program and eliminating summer melt
  • Design strategic plans for recruiting eligible students to Bridge Scholars Plus  
  • Collaborate with CSP and campus partners to update living-learning programs communications collateral (e.g., admissions letters, webpages, Bridge Scholars Plus application)
  • Serve as the CSP representative at Office of Undergraduate Admissions recruitment and yield events, on campus and occasionally at locations that require domestic travel

Data Collection, Research, and Evaluation

  • Lead LLP evaluation efforts
  • Research and benchmark summer bridge and living-learning programs best practices 
  • Create data informed practices to identify and support yield and anti-melt programming
  • Use data to guide, implement, and promote student engagement, anti-racism, equity, and inclusion
  • Develop means of sharing LLP research, data, and outcomes across CSP
  • Promote an overall culture of assessment that effectively supports all members of the CSP community

Staff Supervision and Development (20%)

  • Lead efforts to recruit, retain, supervise, and support a diverse full-time staff 
  • Provide direct supervision to a team of full-time employees; support them in their supervision of undergraduate and graduate student staff and volunteers
  • Provide leadership and coaching that champions the growth of staff in their respective areas of responsibility
  • Communicate unit and college goals to the living-learning programs team, and lead their implementation
  • Lead the year-round performance management process with all members of the LLP team, including the planning, coaching, and review of staff performance

Strategic Partnerships and Outreach (15%)

  • Foster synergy between CSP and its LLP partners (e.g., Division of Student Life, Michigan Learning Communities)
  • Collaborate with the LSA Division of Undergraduate Education, the Office of Enrollment Management, and other campus partners to create and support programming designed to increase yield of students admitted to SBSP and eliminate summer melt 
  • Collaborate with the LSA Division of Undergraduate Education and the Division of Student Life to recruit students to Bridge Scholars Plus 
  • Provide information to support the CSP director’s stewardship and fundraising efforts; participate in donor meetings as requested 
  • Serve as the CSP liaison to assigned U-M schools, colleges, and administrative units
  • Serve as the CSP representative on committees, task forces, and working groups as time and interests allow

CSP Leadership (15%)

  • Serve as a member of the CSP leadership team
  • Partner with the rest of the leadership team to cultivate an environment of collaboration among all areas of CSP
  • Serve as a resource for CSP staff and faculty around living-learning programs leading practices
  • Remain current on research, scholarship, and leading practices related to the liberal arts, higher education, living-learning programs, student success, and anti-racist, equitable education

Required Qualifications*

  • Advanced degree and five or more years of direct experience working with students in a higher education setting
  • Three or more years of progressively responsible experience with living-learning programs
  • Two or more years experience in staff development and supervision, including demonstrated ability to recruit, develop, and retain a diverse staff
  • Demonstrated hands-on experience leading organizational learning, change management, and strategic planning
  • Demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, anti-racism, and inclusion, including direct experience working with students to provide inclusive and welcoming activities and experiences
  • Understanding of student development, high impact practices, and student success work in a college setting
  • Experience building strategic and sustainable cross-organizational partnerships
  • Strong communication skills

Desired Qualifications*

  • Experience analyzing data, identifying trends, and communicating impact
  • Ability to effectively articulate the value of a liberal arts education to a broad range of constituents
  • Experience working with college students in a residential context

Additional Information

As one of the world’s great liberal arts colleges, LSA pushes the boundaries of what is understood about the human experience and the natural world, and we foster the next generation of rigorous and empathetic thinkers, creators, and contributors to the state of Michigan, the nation, and the world.

To learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion in LSA, please visit lsa.umich.edu/lsa/dei.

To learn more about LSA’s Mission, Vision and Values, please visit lsa.umich.edu/strategicvision.

U-M EEO/AA Statement

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

*Please mention you saw this ad on AcademicJobs.*

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