Executive Director of Student Success

Position Overview

Philander Smith University seeks a strategic, data-driven, and student-centeredExecutive Director of Student Success to lead a coordinated University-wide approach to student retention, persistence, academic support, tutoring, and degree completion.

Reporting to theChief Transformation Officer, the Executive Director will provide institutional leadership for developing and executing a comprehensive student-success strategy designed to improve student outcomes from matriculation through graduation. The position will ensure that students receive intentional, timely, and coordinated support while helping the University identify and remove institutional barriers that impede persistence and completion.

The Executive Director will work across Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, Student Affairs, Financial Aid, the Registrar, Institutional Effectiveness, faculty, and other University offices to establish clear accountability for student success. The role will use data, early intervention, case management, academic support, and high-touch engagement to strengthen retention and create a more seamless student experience.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Retention, Persistence, and Completion

• Lead the University’s comprehensive retention, persistence, and completion strategy, establishing measurable goals, interventions, timelines, and accountability structures.
• Develop and implement strategies to improve semester-to-semester persistence, year-to-year retention, academic progression, and graduation rates.
• Establish a coordinated early-alert and intervention framework for students experiencing academic, financial, attendance, engagement, registration, or other barriers to persistence.
• Use student-success data to identify at-risk populations, analyze persistence trends, evaluate interventions, and recommend strategies to University leadership.
• Lead targeted retention campaigns and student outreach initiatives at critical points throughout the academic year.
• Coordinate interventions for students who stop attending, fail to register, demonstrate academic difficulty, or otherwise show indicators of potential attrition.
• Ensure appropriate follow-up, documentation, referrals, and resolution of identified student barriers.

Academic Support and Tutoring

• Provide executive leadership for University tutoring and academic-support services, including peer and professional tutoring, supplemental instruction, academic coaching, study-skills development, and other student-success interventions.
• Establish standards for tutor selection, training, scheduling, service delivery, documentation, utilization, and assessment.
• Use course performance, D/F/W rates, faculty referrals, academic standing, and student demand to strategically deploy tutoring and academic-support resources.
• Partner with Academic Affairs and faculty to strengthen academic recovery initiatives, probation support, and interventions for students experiencing academic difficulty.
• Develop targeted academic-support strategies for gateway courses and other courses with significant impact on student persistence and progression.

Early Intervention and Student Case Management

• Develop and oversee a coordinated student-success case-management model that ensures students experiencing barriers receive timely and appropriate intervention.
• Convene and lead cross-functional student-success meetings focused on students requiring immediate or sustained intervention.
• Establish clear protocols for referrals, escalation, follow-up, documentation, and case resolution.
• Ensure that academic, financial, personal, registration, attendance, and engagement concerns are appropriately routed to responsible University offices.
• Promote a high-touch approach in which students are proactively contacted rather than expected to navigate complex institutional processes independently.

Student Success Operations and Institutional Coordination

• Develop coordinated processes connecting advising, tutoring, academic support, financial aid, registration, student engagement, and other services that influence student persistence.
• Identify institutional policies, procedures, and processes that create unnecessary barriers for students and work collaboratively with responsible offices to improve them.
• Strengthen communication and referral processes among University departments to provide students with a more seamless institutional experience.
• Lead major student-success initiatives and time-sensitive retention efforts at the direction of the Chief Transformation Officer.
• Partner with University leadership on institutional transformation initiatives affecting the student experience, operational efficiency, retention, and completion.

Data, Assessment, and Accountability

• Establish measurable key performance indicators for student success, retention, persistence, academic standing, tutoring utilization, intervention activity, and degree progression.
• Develop dashboards and regular reporting mechanisms that make student-success performance visible and actionable.
• Monitor retention and persistence trends and provide regular updates, analysis, and recommendations to the Chief Transformation Officer and University leadership.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of student-success programs and interventions and recommend continuation, modification, expansion, or redesign based on demonstrated outcomes.
• Collaborate with Institutional Effectiveness and other University offices to ensure student-success strategies are informed by reliable institutional data.
• Promote a culture in which student-success decisions are driven by evidence, measurable outcomes, and continuous improvement.

Leadership and Program Management

• Recruit, supervise, develop, and evaluate Student Success personnel, including tutoring, academic-support, and other assigned staff.
• Establish clear expectations, performance measures, and accountability structures for areas under the Executive Director’s supervision.
• Develop annual priorities, budgets, operating plans, and program assessments aligned with University retention and student-success goals.
• Manage student-success resources effectively and recommend investments that strengthen retention, academic achievement, and degree completion.
• Build a culture of responsiveness, collaboration, accountability, innovation, urgency, and exceptional service to students.
• Maintain strong working relationships with faculty, staff, administrators, and campus partners whose work directly affects student persistence.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree in higher education, student affairs, educational leadership, counseling, academic affairs, or a related field; doctorate preferred.
• Minimum seven years of progressively responsible higher education experience, including substantial responsibility for student success, retention, academic support, advising, student persistence, or related programs.
• Demonstrated experience developing and implementing strategies designed to improve student retention and persistence.
• Demonstrated experience using student data, early-alert strategies, case management, and targeted interventions to improve student outcomes.
• Significant supervisory and program leadership experience.
• Strong project-management, communication, organizational, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively across institutional divisions and build accountability around shared goals.
• Demonstrated commitment to serving diverse student populations and advancing equitable student success.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at an HBCU, private college or university, or mission-driven institution.
• Experience leading a comprehensive student-success, retention, tutoring, advising, academic-support, or persistence operation.
• Experience designing or managing early-alert and student case-management systems.
• Experience with student-success technology, advising platforms, early-alert systems, student information systems, assessment tools, and institutional dashboards.
• Demonstrated success improving measurable retention, persistence, progression, or completion outcomes.
• Experience leading cross-functional institutional initiatives involving multiple administrative and academic divisions.

Reporting and Organizational Relationships

The Executive Director of Student Success reports directly to theChief Transformation Officer and serves as a senior institutional leader responsible for coordinating the University’s retention, persistence, academic-support, and student-success strategy. The Executive Director works collaboratively across Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, Student Affairs, Financial Aid, the Registrar, Institutional Effectiveness, faculty, and other University offices. While individual departments retain responsibility for their respective functions, the Executive Director is responsible for ensuring that student-success efforts are coordinated, measurable, and focused on removing barriers to student progression and completion.

Institutional Expectations

The Executive Director of Student Success is expected to make student successvisible, measurable, coordinated, and actionable across Philander Smith University.

The position will champion a high-touch culture in which students are identified early, contacted proactively, connected quickly to appropriate resources, and supported through resolution of barriers. The Executive Director will help move the institution from reactive student support toward a coordinated model ofearly identification, intentional intervention, accountability, and measurable outcomes.

Success in this role will be demonstrated through stronger student persistence, improved retention, increased utilization and effectiveness of academic-support services, timely resolution of student barriers, and continued progress toward improved graduation and degree-completion outcomes.

Disclaimer

This position description describes the general nature and level of work performed and is not intended to represent an exhaustive list of duties, responsibilities, or qualifications. Philander Smith University reserves the right to modify responsibilities and assignments as institutional priorities and needs evolve.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance Plans
• Short-term and Long-term Disability Coverage
• Flexible Spending Aaccounts and Health Savings Accounts
• Employee Assistance Program
• 403B Retirement Savings Plan
• Life Insurance 
• Paid Time Off
• Tuition Reimbursement

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer

Philander Smith University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. It does not discriminate against applicants or employees based on protected characteristics, including race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or medical history, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law.