Director, Student Success Advising

Job Description:

In 2022, Berklee launched an innovative student success advising model. The Berklee Bridge transformed Berklee’s advising services into a holistic student support system. With a student-centered approach, the Student Success Advising team affirms each individual student’s capacity for self-direction, personal development, and growth. In addition to providing traditional academic advising, the Student Success Advising team acts as the central coordinator of the student success network. Through proactive outreach and engagement, the Student Success Advising team ensures each student is aware of and has access to the resources, programs, and supports provided by academic programs, academic support services, accessibility resources, personal counseling, wellness services, student affairs, student aid, international student services, identity-based programs, and career services.

This Director role is designed for professionals who are passionate about making an impact on student success in all aspects of their educational experience—academic, personal, artistic, and professional. This role is also designed for leaders and innovators in the student success and persistence and/or academic advising fields. The person in this role should have a keen interest in the mentorship and development of professional advisors at all levels of experience, and find fulfillment in their advancement and success while leading with empathy. The Student Success Advising leadership team is seeking candidates who will thrive in a role that supports a community of diverse, talented, and inspiring students from all over the world as they develop as creatives, artists, musicians, performers, entrepreneurs, dancers, designers, educators, and therapists.
This is a unique opportunity to join a talented leadership team and lead a team of professional advisors dedicated to advancing student success in a highly personalized, cohort-based model. The Director will also be a key member of the leadership team and will have an opportunity to contribute in significant ways to the successful expansion and transformation of the advising team.

Job Summary

The Director position reports directly to the Assistant Dean of Student Advising and Success and helps lead and administer the holistic advising model, specifically as it relates to proactive caseload management, partnerships with academic and student support departments, coordinated student outreach, and developing data-driven student success strategies. The Director will be responsible for helping to drive KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) as well as assisting the Assistant Dean with reporting on outcomes. The Director will lead a student cohort-based group of Student Success Advisors, as well as advise a caseload of students.

Student Success Advising is responsible for monitoring and tracking the progress of an assigned cohort-based caseload of undergraduate students and focuses on student success outcomes throughout the entire student journey at Berklee. Student Success Advising builds and nurtures ongoing relationships with academic chairs, faculty, and various support staff, and brings to their daily work current best practices and theories in the areas of student success and persistence, academic advising, and student identity development. Critical to this role is approaching student advising with an ethic of care and the ability to provide a personalized approach that builds strong, authentic, and trusting relationships with students. The Director should be an empathetic leader with a passion for developing and mentoring young professionals, fostering a supportive and growth-oriented environment that empowers individuals to reach their full potential.

Responsibilities

Advising and Success: 

• Provide advice and support to an assigned caseload of students, through appointments, class visits, emails, programming, and more

• Monitor and track progress of an assigned caseload, through academic milestones (music core completion, major declaration, credit completion,  graduation, etc) and partner with students to meet those milestones

• Support academically at-risk students including those withdrawing from courses, off-track for timely graduation, not meeting satisfactory academic progress, and provide coaching and strategies as appropriate 

• Actively connect students to academic department advising, support services, and programming, to help students make the most of their academic experience

• Coach students on connecting the dots about college policies, procedures, and academic options to create goals and an academic plan that works best for them 

• As appropriate, connect students with their Berklee Bridge team to ensure they are aware