Director of College Initiatives

POSITION: Director of College Initiatives

LOCATION: DSST: Home Office located in Denver, CO

SALARY RANGE: $101,500 to $118,600 for up to 10 years of aligned experience

STATUS/CLASSIFICATION: Full time, benefits eligible, exempt, in-person position (Denver, CO) 

START: June 2025

Director of College Initiatives  

Overview of Position

The Director of College Initiatives leads the network’s college success vision and strategy and larger College Success Team. This person is a key leader in realizing DSST’s mission of college and career success in the 21st century. Consequently, they oversee college success workstreams related to: college success people, program strategy, data, tools, academic prep, and the postsecondary experience. 

KEY ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Essential Functions

• Leadership (25%)

  • Lead home office College Success Team in defining and ensuring execution of vision, strategy, and goals, including network report card goals and our mission measure goals.

  • Leads home office College Success Team to establish strategies aligned with, and aimed at accomplishing, vision and goals

  • Directly supervises, coaches, and supports College Success Team to encourage their growth and development into future network leaders

  • Recruits and hires top talent for home office and campus College Success teams

• People (15%)

  • Defines and owns the vision for college success people development, in alignment with DSST’s people development philosophy and Leadership Core Competencies

  • Oversees the DSST college success team pipeline, and regularly engages key stakeholders to assess and understand DSST’s rising talent pool, and to ensure that high potential leaders are identified and developed

  • Oversees talent development, assessment, and evaluation practices to build and retain excellent leaders and to assess readiness for college success team leadership roles across the organization

  • Analyzes and responds to multiple data sources to continuously assess and ensure college success team development program and program effectiveness 

•  Program (15%)

  • Defines and owns the vision for college success program, in alignment with DSST’s graduate profile and strategic plan.

  • Leads DSST college success team in annual review of college success program expectations, strategies, and tools

  • Facilitates sharing of resources and best practices between campuses to maximize students’ postsecondary choice and opportunity  

  • Evaluates and support program refinement to maximize students’ postsecondary choice and opportunity  

• Tools (10%)

  • Works with Sr Manager of College Success to brainstorm, develop, and manage tools to solve complex problems in college success

  • Evaluates existing college success tools, systems, and platforms for effectiveness for students and school teams

  • Innovates and finds new solutions to solve existing problems, particularly in the fields of college advising, course selection, and professional pathway opportunities.

• College Readiness (10%)

  • Works alongside Schools Service Team to set academic program vision, aligning with college readiness

  • Helps inform pathways to multiple college credit bearing opportunities including AP exams, dual enrollment courses, and certification programs

  • Informs and collaborates with Academic Program team to ensure students and team are set up to maximize postsecondary choices and opportunitiesElevates campus student trends in academic prep and college readiness to Senior Leadership Team

• Postsecondary Experience (15%)

  • Explores and defines opportunities for DSST to support and/or partner with organizations and initiatives that support our DSST graduates

  • Directs partnership with DSST partner organizations including University of Denver, CU-Denver, CrossPurpose, CSU SPUR, and AdvanceEDU, and others

  • Partners with other CMOs to share, explore, and discuss trends in postsecondary experience of alums

  • Manages scholarship opportunities for DSST alums, including scholarships through