Director, Postsecondary Value and Field Strategy

ABOUT US

The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has a campus in Aspen, CO, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.

COLLEGE EXCELLENCE PROGRAM

The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (Aspen) aims to strengthen higher education leadership and practice to improve student outcomes—with the ultimate goal of advancing economic mobility and developing talent for the good of each individual and society as a whole. We support this mission through multiple programs, including the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the American Talent Initiative, the Aspen Presidents and Rising Presidents Fellowships, Unlocking Opportunity, and a range of transfer initiatives designed to improve bachelor’s attainment for students who start in community college. Each year, our work engages hundreds of college leaders (and often teams) at universities and community colleges that educate millions of students nationwide. For more information, visit highered.aspeninstitute.org or find us on LinkedIn.

ABOUT THIS ROLE

For over a decade, Aspen has engaged deeply with community colleges to uncover and replicate transformational models that produce dramatically better levels of success for students after they graduate—in attaining jobs with good wages directly after community college or after transferring and earning a bachelor’s degree. We are currently exploring parallel engagements with four-year colleges and universities as another major component in our efforts to increase postsecondary value, ensuring that bachelor’s degrees lead to good jobs and economic mobility.

This new director position (one of three portfolio leaders at Aspen) will lead a growing body of work that aims to ensure the degrees students earn from US institutions of higher education have value that advances their economic mobility and develops their talents to meet workforce needs. The major project already underway in this portfolio is Aspen’s Unlocking Opportunity project, launched in 2023, with aims to improve the value of credentials earned by students graduating from community colleges, by working directly with 65 colleges to set goals and support reforms, gather research on insights and practices used by leaders and teams to achieve strong post-completion outcomes, and sharing those insights with the field in Aspen’s other higher education programs and partnerships. The director will also help explore and shape potential projects aimed at ensuring four-year colleges and universities engage in practices that lead bachelor’s degree earners to better post-graduation outcomes in labor markets and graduate education.

Reporting to CEP’s Executive Director, the director will join CEP’s Senior Team, a dynamic leadership team that collaboratively designs CEP’s strategy, defines its priorities, manages the organization and its staff, and makes thoughtful choices that maximize CEP’s impact in the field. Today, CEP has 40 staff and an annual budget of $13-15 million, most of which is provided by 20 foundation/philanthropic partners. The target salary range is $175,000 - $225,000. There is a preference for this position to be based in the Aspen Institute’s Washington, D.C. office with a minimum of two days per week in the office, and it will require about eight to twelve weeks of travel per year.


WHAT YOU WILL DO

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