DEAN OF BUSINESS & EDUCATION

Job Description

Job Description

Job Title : Dean 

Academic Enterprise: Business and Education

Reports To: Provost & VP for Academic Affairs

University Mission: Rochester Christian University is a Christ-centered institution that empowers students to lead lives of personal and professional significance while serving God in a changing world.

Position Summary: The Dean of Business and Education advances quality, mission alignment, and student formation for the Schools of Business and Education. Reporting to the Provost, the Dean provides academic, strategic, and fiscal leadership, and stewards program strategy, faculty excellence, accreditation compliance, enrollment outcomes, and external partnerships. 

The Dean champions Rochester Christian University’s EPIC Academic Philosophy - Exploring, Preparing, Integrating, Calling - ensuring curricular and co-curricular experiences that broadens student understanding, builds professional competencies, and connects learning and vocational clarity grounded in Christian Faith to real-world contexts.

Required Qualifications:

• Earned doctorate in Business, Education, or related field from an accredited institution.
• Demonstrated administrative leadership, with evidence of mission alignment in a faith-based context.
• Experience with accreditation, assessment, and strategic academic planning procedures.
• Demonstrated commitment to Christian higher education and the mission of Rochester Christian University.

Additional Preferred Qualifications:

• Scholarly credentials appropriate for appointment at the rank of associate or full professor.
• Demonstrated administrative leadership in higher education.

EPIC-Aligned Competency Domains:

Exploring Innovation, Strategy, and Academic Leadership

• Expand contextual understanding and intellectual breadth across programs (liberal arts foundation).
• Promotes connections between general education, RCU virtues for the formation of students, and vocation, across Business and Education
• Strengthen interprofessional and cross-curricular exploration and collaboration.
• Ensure curricula reflect the breadth and complexity of the world while rooted in Christian thought and service.
• Lead ongoing academic planning, program review, and curriculum innovation.
• Lead a strategic academic vision that considers emerging fields or program enhancements to engage students in the exploration of diverse disciplines, worldviews, and ethical contexts.

Preparing Workforce Alignment and Professional Readiness

• Expand experiential learning, internships, clinical placements, and certification pathways.
• Monitor career readiness indicators, including placement rates and employer satisfaction.
• Align programs with professional standards, licensure requirements, and market demand.
• Support growth in adult, online, and graduate offerings consistent with institutional strategy.
• Strengthen digital literacy, leadership training, and ethical decision-making competencies within curricula.
• Recruit and develop faculty committed to academic excellence and RCU’s mission.
• Lead fair and meaningful faculty evaluation, promotion, and professional development practices.

Integrating Mission Coherence and Applied Learning

• Ensure programs remain academically rigorous, current, and responsive to cultural and technological change.
• Oversee assessment systems measuring student learning and applied competency development.
• Champion high-impact practices that connect classroom learning with community, business, and education settings.
• Foster partnerships with corporate leaders, PK-12 districts, nonprofit organizations, and alumni.
• Promote student and faculty scholarship and applied research.
• Support enrollment management and strategies for sustained growth.

Calling Faith Integration and Vocational Discernment

• Model leadership consistent with the university’s Christian mission.
• Promote thoughtful engagement between Christian faith and ethical complexity in decision-making.
• Champion curricular and co-curricular experiences that help students reflect on vocation in relation to faith, purpose, and service.
• Encourage servant leadership, ethical decision-making, and spiritual formation.

Additional Duties 

• Keep abreast of current trends and issues in related professions and higher education; participate in state, regional and national meetings.
• Participate in professional and civic activities related to professional competencies.
• Participate in selective scholarship endeavors as appropriate.
• Represent the programs within the Academic Division, formally and informally, to departments within Rochester Christian University, other organizations, and the communities served.
• Actively pursues grants and outside funding sources for major projects and equipment.
• Performs other duties as assigned

Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes

• Demonstrated leadership skills, and ability to build consensus.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Commitment to diversity and to student success.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with a wide variety of people and institutions.
• Leadership style that emphasizes collaboration, teamwork, and facilitation.
• Demonstrated ability to utilize and support emerging technologies in academic environments.
• Supportive of the University mission.