TO: Employee News
FROM: Dr. Melik Peter Khoury
DATE: September 9, 2015
SUBJECT: Chief Student Success Officer – Internal Interest a Priority
ATTACHMENTS: Chief Student Success Officer Job Description
Dear Colleagues,
I think we all agree that there is nothing more important to Unity College than student success and well-intentioned measures over several years have realized temporary improvements in retention, persistence, and graduation rates–enough to show us the promise of concerted effort, but not enough to secure those gains as lasting trends.
It is time to create a dedicated position that institutionalizes and consolidates all of our student success functions into one fully-supported position and add senior leadership that is not pulled in a hundred directions or asked to deal with both strategy and day-to-day student concerns. If recruitment is the college’s yin, then student success is its yang and just as important.
I’m writing today to let you know that we will be conducting a search for a new senior-level position dedicated to student success. The Chief Student Success Officer (CSSO) will be the first-amongst-equals for functions including student success and retention, persistence and graduation, student support, academic support, and co-curricular living and learning.
In an effort to encourage leadership development at Unity College I will begin this process as an internal search with a small team to encourage current faculty and staff to apply. If an internal process does not yield a successful candidate, then we will grow the committee appropriately and open a national search. For the internal process, I have asked our Director of HR (S. Conroy), our Dean of Academic Support Services (J. Zavodny), and a faculty member (to be determined), to join me in the review and advise me on next steps.
Internal or external, the successful candidate should have a minimum of ten years of progressively responsible experience in one or more of the key areas of student success with experience managing multiple departments. She or he will have had success setting and meeting retention goals through data-driven marketing and recruitment planning and a modern understanding of student needs.
It’s time for Unity College to take an institutional approach to student success, and I look forward to working with you to identify a senior leader prepared to spearhead our efforts. Please contact me if you are interested I learning more about the expectations of the position please do not hesitate to contact me directly. For consideration, please submit a resume and a letter of interest to me (Mkhoury@Unity.edu), with the SUBJECT LINE: CSSO INTEREST no later than October 2nd, 2015.
Sincerely,
MPK
Dr. Melik Peter Khoury
Executive Vice President, CAO, CFO &
Liaison to the Board of Trustees
Unity College
“Integrity, by its very existence, rekindles the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; as a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John Gardner
