POSITION TITLE: Vice President, Academic Affairs/Chief Academic Officer

DEPARTMENT: Academic Affairs

PRIMARY LOCATION: Fall River, Massachusetts

REPORTS TO: President of Bristol Community College

POSITIONS SUPERVISED: The Vice President, Academic Affairs (VPAA) provides leadership, management, and support for all academic related activities of the college. This position oversees planning and implementation of activities related to curricular design and development, academic quality in course offerings, and strategies to support student success and college completion. The VPAA leads the work of deans, associate deans, coordinators, department chairs, and has oversight of approximately 450 faculty (full-time and adjunct) and academic staff under the terms of the college's shared governance and its collective bargaining agreements.

STATEMENT OF DUTIES:

The Vice President, Academic Affairs (VPAA) reports to the President, is a member of the President's Leadership Team and is the college's Chief Academic Officer. The VPAA provides professional and ethical leadership that fosters the highest of teaching, learning, and academic service standards, and student and institutional outcomes.

The VPAA is responsible for providing leadership and direction of the college's academic/credit programs and services in alignment with the college's mission, vision, goals and core values. The VPAA collaborates with colleagues on the President's Leadership Team and faculty to advance the mission of the college and achieve its strategic goals; developing and empowering a diverse, collaborative and innovative academic leadership team. The President's Leadership Team is committed to leading, fostering, and supporting an organizational culture where professionalism, positive intent, employee empowerment, equity and accountability thrive. The VPAA works with internal and external stakeholders to champion a college-going culture in a region that has experienced low college attainment.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS, DUTIES, AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Leadership

• Provide leadership in all aspects of Academic Affairs, including but not limited to long-range planning, hiring and professional development of faculty and academic staff, budgeting, curriculum, assessment, accreditation and academic program/service development.
• Hire, supervise, develop, and lead assigned Academic Affairs staff. Conduct regular performance evaluations to ensure continuous improvement and identify potential opportunities for growth. Work closely with Human Resources to develop staff capabilities and expectations.
• Promote a positive and inclusive work environment that supports the professional growth of staff while fostering a commitment to students and service excellence.
• Implement the strategic plan for Academic Affairs that includes measurable goals and indicators of success, while incorporating data collection and analysis to support this work.
• Provide leadership for the professional development of faculty, administrators and staff within Academic Affairs to achieve institutional goals.
• Provide leadership within the college's shared governance system, working across areas to encourage student success. Consult regularly with committees and departments within and beyond Academic Affairs to achieve the college's strategic goals and objectives.
• Provide leadership for the ongoing enhancement and implementation of the college's learning outcomes assessment program to ensure the achievement of competencies and learning goals.
• Foster strong and positive relationships with unions, the Faculty and Professional Staff Senate and the Staff Senate to ensure on-going dialogue, shared governance and compliance with and support of collective bargaining agreements.
• Provide leadership of various delivery models for instruction, including the use of technology, in face-to-face, web-enhanced, hybrid and online learning modalities.
• Promote the use of High Impact Practices (HIPs) such as but not limited to Open Educational Resources (OER), Learning Communities, Community Based Learning (CBL), and Internships.
• Develop and support a culture of shared governance, trust, respect and transparency for all college constituents.

Administration

• Ensure the maintenance, development, and application of academic policies and standards for student success and institutional effectiveness.
• Oversee the institutional accreditation (New England Commission of Higher Education) and serve as the college's accreditation liaison, ensuring the retention of regional and program accreditation; provide leadership for efforts associated with assessment and student learning outcomes.
• Coordinate the systematic review of academic programs/services to ensure that they meet the needs of our students and communities; recommend and implement new instructional programs and services; initiate the sunsetting of programs.
• Recommend academic faculty appointments including but not limited to tenure, promotion, and sabbatical to the President.
• Collaborate with Student Services and Enrollment Management leadership to review, develop and sustain the college's recruitment and retention strategies to meet current and future goals at all Bristol locations, including Online Learning.
• Collaborate with Economic & Business Development to develop and implement educational pathways and stackable credentials from non-credit to credit certificate and associate degree programs.
• Collaborate with the college's Development and Grant Development offices to identify strategic funding and fund-raising opportunities to support academic programming.
• Build strategic partnerships with local K-12, institutions of higher education, community-based organizations, and business and industry.
• Participate in community, state and regional activities and organizations to promote and enhance the college's relationships, effectiveness and brand.
• Prepare and administer the Academic Affairs budget.

Demonstrate a sense of professionalism and consistently reflect Bristol's core values while interacting with members of the Bristol community.

Focus on the Commonwealth's Equity Agenda by applying related best practices throughout all job functions.

Perform other duties as assigned.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, all required qualifications must be met by date of hire.

• Minimum of a Doctorate or appropriate terminal degree in an academic discipline.
• Minimum of five (5) to seven (7) years of progressive academic administrative and leadership experience in higher education with broad supervisory experience. An equivalent combination of education, training, and experience shall be considered.
  • Demonstrated ability to work effectively with faculty, administrators and staff to enhance student success, promote faculty development and achieve institutional goals.
  • Demonstrated analytical, problem-solving, consensus-building, organizational, technology, supervisory and interpersonal skills, especially in relation to academic planning and development of standards, policies and procedures.
  • Demonstrated record of recruiting, developing and retaining diverse faculty and staff.
  • Demonstrated commitment and experience with shared governance in a higher education setting.
  • Demonstrated commitment and leadership of diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice in higher education.
  • Demonstrated experience fostering strong relations with unions, institutional senates and implementing collective bargaining agreements.
  • Demonstrated use of data collection, assessment and key performance indicators to foster and support innovation and continuous improvement.
  • Team building and conflict management skills.
  • Experience managing academic budgets.
  • Demonstrated commitment to enhancing operational performance, effectiveness and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated understanding of current teaching and learning concepts.
  • Demonstrated leadership with regional and program accreditation.
  • Experience identifying, developing and growing successful and innovative academic programs.
• Demonstrated leadership that has produced positive outcomes related to high impact practices, and the success of students who are first-generation, traditionally underrepresented/underserved/ marginalized in higher education, adults returning to learning, English language learners; and those that require developmental education.
  • Demonstrated ability to promote an inclusive environment that recognizes the diversity and backgrounds embodied in our communities and reflected by our students and employees.
  • Demonstrated leadership of implementing and assessing practices to advance student equity.
• Effective written, presentation and verbal communication skills that include the ability to listen and respect diverse points of view, build consensus, share information accurately, and build an environment of trust.
• Demonstrated proficiency with Microsoft Office 365 applications and higher education enterprise systems
• Reliable transportation in order to travel to and from meetings, trainings, or campus and community locations as required.
• COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement: As of January 2022, candidates for employment should be aware that Community College students, faculty, and staff are required to be fully vaccinated. Accordingly, initial employment is dependent upon receipt and verification of full vaccination status records; details of how to fulfill vaccine record verification requirements will be provided during the hire and onboarding process.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Progressive, senior level academic administrative experience within a multi-campus environment; with a preference for community college experience.
• Full-time teaching experience at the undergraduate college level.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced, innovative and entrepreneurial environment.
• Experience implementing collaborative, transformational change that achieves and sustains a student-centered learning environment.
• Ability to promote the collection, use and governance of data to inform organizational decision-making in ways that positively impact student learning.
• Demonstrated experience as a data-informed problem solver who has collaboratively implemented positive changes for students within a complex organization.
• Experience developing, allocating and reallocating resources to achieve strategic goals.
• Demonstrated knowledge and consistent experience in using varied social media outlets on behalf of a business or organization that has proven to increase the digital footprint of the organization's brand.
• Ability to communicate in a language in addition to English.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT:

The employee must meet the physical demands and work environment of the position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable those with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

POSITION STATUS: This is a full-time, non-unit position with benefits.

SALARY: Hiring salary $165,000 - $180,000, commensurate with education and experience.