Vice President and Academic Dean

the client seeks an inspiring, visible, student-centered, and strategic scholar-administrator to serve as its next Vice President and Academic Dean (VP/AD). This role is a chief academic leadership position with broad influence and a hands-on approach. The VP/AD will provide long-term stability after recent turnover in the role and will have a unique pathway to future leadership. The VP/AD will report directly to the President and serve as the institution’s chief academic officer, responsible for shaping and sustaining academic quality, supporting faculty, and ensuring student success. The VP/AD provides strategic vision, leadership, and oversight for all academic programs and divisions, ensuring excellence in teaching, learning, and scholarship while fostering an environment that supports student success, faculty development, and institutional distinction. Key responsibilities include providing engaged leadership to faculty, staff, and students; guiding academic planning, program development, and curricular innovation; supporting faculty recruitment, retention, mentoring, and professional development; championing student learning, retention, and career preparation; advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; and stewarding resources, budgets, and foundation-supported investments. The VP/AD will also advocate for the client within its system and with external partners, and engage in fundraising efforts, including an upcoming campaign supporting undergraduate research, academic facilities, and student success. The successful candidate will bring a terminal degree and a distinguished record appropriate for appointment as a tenured full professor, demonstrated experience in academic administration, a record supporting both professional programs and the liberal arts, evidence of innovation in program development and student success initiatives, and familiarity with or openness to working in a unionized environment. Confidential