Job details

Vice President of Portfolio Strategy and Innovation (School of Education)

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

Sets the strategic vision for programs and offerings that create pathways to opportunity for rising talent at scale, achieving impactful target enrollments (i.e., 1,000 student/year enrollment); closing the gap in equity and attainment, and providing significant ROI for student tuition investment.
Ability to flex and align to the WGU and School of Education strategic vision and communicate the vision to create alignment with the team.
Guides and approves the business case for new program and product offerings, including defining the program requirements, market viability, priority, and student success outcomes that guides the drafting of the program concept and proposal.
Creates the strategic vision and plan that defines the academic program roadmap.
Constantly scans the marketplace for innovative program or product opportunities and next generation learning resources and instructional approaches.
Uses data and research to identify trends, drive innovation, and disrupt the status quo in the marketplace to strengthen the program portfolio and increase successful outcomes.
Disrupts the traditional notion of General Education and educator preparation in alignment with WGU's mission.
Collaborates across colleges to define a robust General Education catalog to fit the needs of program development across the colleges. Looks for synergies across colleges and seeks opportunities to streamline design, development, and delivery. Look for synergies between colleges' Gen Ed offerings and identify opportunities for centralized design/development of Gen Ed.
Understands the trends in learning science and learning resource innovation (such as VR, AI, etc.) and how the innovations could impact readiness, student success and attainment.
Provides people leadership and professional development opportunities that lead to successful outcomes through individual and collective performance management.
Reviews plans, drafts, concept proposals, and documents to provide high-quality feedback, both verbally and in writing.
Synthesizes complex ideas into practical and accessible language, both verbally and in writing.
Possesses effective written and verbal communication skills and a proven ability to collaborate in a high-stress environment.
Opportunity to enhance outcomes across the University by innovating developmental education and readiness needs across the General Education portfolio.
Directly impacts College outcomes, with direct line-of-sight and impact on many student outcomes and Key Results.
Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

Proven ability to conceive, build and launch large/complex initiatives.
Ability to set the tone and pace of the college/program management to deliver on the college and WGU objectives.
Experience presenting program/product vision and roadmaps to senior leadership, faculty, staff and partners.
Experience working in an extremely fast-paced organization and iteratively creating solutions for complex challenges/issues.
Ability to work in a highly collaborative, cross-functional environment and across multiple stakeholders to ensure effective communication and collaboration across the college and/or organization.
Student Obsession – Keeps our mission core to all decisions and doesn't lose sight of our end goal. Strives to live up to our WGU promise.
Operating knowledge and understanding of other domains and functional areas in the University.
Accumulated knowledge and experience to be recognized as an industry expert in their field
Leadership – Inspires and develops team members to do their best work, recognizing individual and team contributions. Builds cohesive and productive work and project teams in order to achieve the required outcomes.
Business Alignment - Aligns the direction, products, services, and performance of a product with the rest of the organization.
Innovation - Develops new insights into situations and applies different solutions to make improvements. Expects fresh, big, bold thinking and looks for new ideas everywhere.
Judgement - Makes sound decisions; bases decisions on fact rather than emotion; analyzes problems skillfully; uses logic to reach solutions.
Ability to deal with ambiguity - Can effectively cope with change; shift gears comfortably; decide and act without having the total picture; comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
Earn Trust - Earns trust and respect through consistent honesty and professionalism in all interactions. Listens genuinely, speaks directly, and treats others with respect.
Cross-department Collaboration - Works cooperatively with multiple departments, to accomplish objectives to build and maintain mutually-beneficial partnerships, leverage information, and achieve results.
Urgency/Deliver Results – Responds to and acts on all challenges in a timely manner. Focuses on desired outcomes, sets and achieves challenging goals.

Competencies:

Organizational Impact:

Head of an Office or Function with significant impact on the Unit or University.
Accountable for the overall performance and success of assigned area. Establishes and implements tactical and operational plans for the department, with broad impact on other areas.
Oversees budgetary impacts to innovate and development programs that support the University's mission, vision, and goals, as well as develops policies and programs for the improvement of operations across the University.
Assumes budgetary ownership and responsibility for financial management of the department, portfolios/programs, faculty, and staff.
Work directly impacts many University financials.
Leads multiple academic programs and/or College teams

Problem Solving & Decision Making:

Responsible for improving entire processes, programs, or systems.
Problems faced are frequently complex and multi-dimensional, requiring broad-based consideration of variables that affect areas outside of immediate responsibility.
Extensively analyzes problems to seek understanding of the underlying issues.
Decisions broadly impact the University in multiple dimensions
Accountable for major initiatives and work for the College or Academic org
Contributes significant strategic thought and planning to both College and University outcomes

Communication & Influence:

Communicates within and outside of the department, and typically has responsibilities for communicating with external contacts.
Interacts internally with executive level management to influence and negotiate on sensitive matters, policy, and practices.
Represents a College with frequent cross-functional influence required across the University.
Primarily influences E-Staff, ULC, SVPs, and occasionally the President.
May provide external influence or representation.

Leadership & Talent Management

Manages multiple individuals and/or teams.
Leads other People Leaders, and Leaders of Leaders (Directors)
Often leads multiple cross-org project teams
Has hiring, firing, promotion, performance development, and reward authority for direct reports.

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

Master's degree in a related field from an accredited institution.
15 years of relevant experience generally includes a minimum of 10 years leading a team of Directors and/or multiple Managers.
Demonstrated expertise in successfully innovating in their respective domains/marketplaces.
Experience in online design and delivery of programs, including competency-based or mastery-based models.
Advanced expertise in developing programs that address student readiness and/or developmental education.

Demonstrated success in designing 'non-traditional' programs.
- Including CBE, Skills-based architecture
- Academic & Career Success for Advancing Talent & Rising Talent

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in a relevant area from an accredited institution.
Experience in developing and scaling rapidly changing organizations/programs.

Physical Requirements:

Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.
Occasional travel may be required.

As an equal opportunity employer, WGU recognizes that our strength lies in our people. We are committed to diversity.

By Western Governors University

To do this, the governors enlisted the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) to help design the newly envisioned university. Five themes remained central ...

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FUNDING

Nonprofit

INDUSTRY

Colleges & Universities

TEAM SIZE

5001-10000

LOCATION

Hybrid, based in Salt Lake City, UT

DATE POSTED