Student Success Coordinator

Overview:

About Gordon-Conwell: Gordon-Conwell is an inter-denominational evangelical Protestant graduate school, unique with its broad array of over 2,100 students and 200 faculty and staff from 98 denominations and 64 countries. Our four campuses include a residential model of education at South Hamilton, MA; an urban context offering classes in five languages from Boston, MA; and adult educational models from both our Charlotte, NC campus and our offerings in Jacksonville, FL. Our mission is to prepare men and women for ministry at home and abroad. Rooted in the gospel and God’s Word, the seminary seeks to develop Christian leaders who are thoughtful, globally aware, spiritually mature and ready for a broad array of ministries. While being historically orthodox and evangelical, we seek to address the issues of our times with both relevance to the culture and faithfulness to Christ and God’s truthful Word.

Position Summary:

Under the supervision of the Director of Student Success, this at-will position supports the mission of the seminary and Student Services by providing oversight and care primarily for Spanish and Portuguese speaking students. The individual works to provide timely, effective, and student-focused services, advocacy, and care primarily for Spanish and Portugues speaking adult learner students.

Key Responsibilities:

• Student Experiences: Provides leadership for the student experience in coordination with the Director of Student Success. Manages team and student communications, as well as any team training or cultural development needed to ensure quality student experiences. Provides onboarding for new students through either welcome calls or group gatherings and plans New Student Orientation for new students to create a smoother transition for the new students’ experience in seminary. Offers solutions to problems where needed, advocates for students with administration and provides advising. When applicable, assist student success representative (student workers) with problem solving and a higher level of advising. (25%)
• Retention Efforts: In collaboration with success representative(s), proactively reaches out to students who haven’t registered for upcoming terms, including those who are at risk of being withdrawn for inactivity with the recognition that adult education and digital students are at risk of the lowest retention rate. Work to ensure overall retention rate runs equal to or less than the national average for digital and adult education graduate school students. Encourage recently withdrawn students to reapply and finish their degree in collaboration with registration and admissions. (40%)
• Events & Hospitality: This individual may coordinate a hospitable, student-focused environment for course meetings, working in close collaboration with the Director of Student Success, Faculty, DigEd, IT and Library teams. (10%)
• Student Services Accessibility: Ensuring smooth, day-to-day student access to student services, this individual will coordinate with other functional teams to liaise and translate when applicable for their services (Student Accounts, IT, Student Life, and the library). This individual will also coordinate with other functional teams (i.e., with the Campus Operations Manager, Registration/Student Services Team, and the library) to create and ensure a semester-by-semester, student-focused, campus coverage calendar. Participates in all-hands on deck activities, such as opening day and graduation. (15%)
• Student Success Personnel Management: Directly oversees the student success representative student worker(s), when applicable. This supervisory role requires the individual to work closely in collaboration with admissions, the Director of Student Success and the GCTS Student Services teams to provide strategy and guidance for student success representatives. (10%)
• Perform other duties as necessary.

Functional Competencies:

• Industry Comprehension: Ability to integrate industry standard digital resources (i.e. student management software, communication apps, digital learning platforms).
• Physical: Able to lift up to 40 pounds.
• Travel: This role may require some travel to other GCTS campuses or related teaching/event locations through-out the United States to complete key responsibilities.

Core Competencies:

• Student Focus: Must be able to anticipate student needs to identify and remove barriers that hinder providing excellent student success services. Engage appropriate internal stakeholders as needed to resolve any issues outside the individual’s scope of responsibility. Be equipped with an understanding of the roles and functions of all other departments should any non-technology support requests arise.
• Communication and Interpersonal Effectiveness: Must be able to communicate in a manner that allows information to flow freely and smoothly in order to perform job responsibilities in a timely fashion. Effective two-way communication with end-users at all levels of the organization. Ability to work collaboratively and serve in a multi-campus, decentralized team environment is required.
• Language Proficiency: Must be able to communicate effectively in English, Spanish and/or Portuguese.

Education and Experience:

• Education: Master’s Degree in a field related to theological education, or equivalent training and experience preferred.
• Experience:
  • Preferred previous experience in student services, customer service or other related fields.
  • Preferred previous general administrative experience in a multi-office environment.
  • Basic competencies in Microsoft Office and web-meeting technology required.

Application Process:

Please apply through Gordon-Conwell’s Career Center available here: https://www.gordonconwell.edu/employment/

Please include these documents in either Microsoft Word or PDF formats:

• A cover letter addressed to Anna Huffman, Director of Student Success, explaining your interest in the position.
• A formal CV that includes the names of at least three references required.

No hard copy materials, please. Opportunities to interview will be made available at the search committee’s initiative. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.