[Hiring] Director, Instruction and Learner Experience @Merit America

Role Description

The primary mission of the Director, Instruction and Learner Experience is to own the learner-facing academic experience at Meritus College - what learners study, how well it is taught, and whether they are supported well enough to persist and complete. Most institutions split this work across a curriculum shop, a faculty office, and a student services division. Meritus deliberately does not, because curriculum design, instructional practice, and learner support succeed or fail together.

As Meritus College launches and builds in real time, you will lead the instruction, program design, and learner services teams while personally building what does not yet exist, writing the policy, redesigning the course, coaching the instructor, fixing the advising workflow, and documenting all of it to a standard that holds up under accreditation review. You will also serve as a core innovation partner to the Chief Academic Officer, bringing evidence from live delivery to sharpen the College’s competency-based, workforce-aligned model, and being candid when the current design is not working.

This role requires someone who moves fluidly between designing the model and doing the work, and who responds to unfinished systems by building rather than waiting for direction. The Director, Instruction and Learner Experience will report directly to Melinda Day, Chief Academic Officer, serve on the College’s core leadership team, and work cross-functionally across Meritus College teams.

Responsibilities

• Curriculum & Program Design (25%):
  • Own the design, development, review, and revision of every academic program the College offers, including learning outcome architecture, course maps, assessment design, and materials selection.
  • Direct the program design team’s roadmap and sequencing, and approve programs and courses before they go live.
  • Ensure every program is aligned to labor market outcomes, accreditation standards, and the College’s educational philosophy and that the alignment is documented.
• Instruction & Teaching Quality (25%):
  • Define what good teaching looks like at Meritus and hold the instructional team to it, including course facilitation expectations, feedback turnaround standards, engagement norms, and grading consistency.
  • Conduct and oversee course observations and instructional review, and address teaching quality concerns directly, including through performance management when needed.
  • Develop and evaluate, and develop instructional staff, and maintain the faculty credential files required for accreditation review.
  • Manage instructor workload, course assignments, and staffing plans against enrollment projections.
• Learner Support & Learner Services (25%):
  • Own the full learner support function: academic advising and coaching, tutoring, accessibility services and accommodations, library and learning resources, and early-alert and persistence outreach.
  • Establish caseload standards, response-time expectations, and escalation paths, and ensure distance learners have access that is genuinely equivalent, not nominally equivalent.
  • Own first-level resolution of learner academic complaints, grade appeals, and academic progress disputes.
• Assessment, Policy & Accreditation Readiness (10%):
  • Design and run the assessment system, including course- and program-level outcome assessment, the annual program review cycle, and the documented loop from evidence to curricular change.
  • Own the academic metrics the College watches, persistence, course completion, competency attainment, time to completion, satisfactory academic progress, and learner satisfaction, and bring analysis, not just dashboards, to leadership.
  • Draft, steward, and maintain academic policy, including grading, satisfactory academic progress, academic integrity in an AI-enabled learning environment, academic engagement, transfer and prior learning credit, grade appeals, and instructor evaluation.
  • Author the academic sections of the accreditation self-study and ensure the catalog, syllabi, and learner-facing materials say the same thing the policies say.
• Team Leadership & Strategic Partnership (15%):
  • Lead, manage, and grow the instruction, program design, and learner services teams, setting goals and performance expectations and making hiring and role-design recommendations.
  • Build a team that can absorb enrollment growth without a proportional increase in headcount, through better systems, clearer standards, and documented processes.
  • Serve as a trusted thought partner to the Chief Academic Officer, proposing what comes next, like new programs, modalities, credential structures, and support models, with cost, risk, and accreditation implications attached.
  • Champion the college internally and externally, clearly communicating vision, progress, and impact and building enthusiasm and confidence among staff, partners, and key stakeholders.
  • Supports the academic operating rhythm, including course build and launch schedule, and LMS course readiness standards, in partnership with the Registrar and the Compliance team.

Qualifications

• Committed to our mission to pave pathways to family-sustaining careers, break the poverty cycle, and create upward mobility for low-wage workers.
• Excited to build in a start-up environment, comfortable with ambiguity, and energized by the opportunity to shape something new from the ground up.
• Shared sense of responsibility and ownership for our collective work in making a positive impact on the community we support, true to our value of Win & Lose Together.
• Committed to serving students from all backgrounds and meeting each learner where they are.
• Passionate about fostering a workplace culture that values diverse perspectives and experiences.
• Committed to continuous learning and growth in advancing inclusive excellence and closing gaps across lines of difference.
• Passionate about fostering a workplace culture that embraces and values individual differences, aligned with our core value of inclusivity.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in higher education administration, public policy, or a related field strongly preferred.
• 8+ years in higher education, with direct experience building or leading academic programs, not only administering them. Experience with competency-based, online, or workforce-aligned models serving working adults is strongly preferred.
• Experience building in a start-up environment, including new program launch, or fast-scaling organization. A track record of creating structure, systems, and process where none existed.
• Experience managing mid-to-senior level employees, including regular professional development and performance reviews.
• Experience working with student services staff, with a background in academic support services, and advising.
• Strong assessment and data background, comfortable owning learning outcome assessment and translating academic metrics into decisions and curricular change.
• High capacity and resourcefulness, comfortable moving between designing the model and doing the hands-on work, without treating the second as beneath the role.
• AI fluency and sound technology judgment, with the ability to evaluate where AI and other emerging tools can strengthen curriculum, assessment, and instruction, and the judgment to know where they should not be used, in order to protect academic rigor and integrity.
• Sound judgment and executive presence, with the ability to serve as a credible thought partner to senior leaders and to be the dissenting voice when the evidence supports it.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental and Vision insurance (100% Paid Employee Only Coverage)
• Flexible Spending Account and Health Savings Account
• Dependent care Flexible Spending Account
• Health Reimbursement Account fully funded by Merit
• Education & personal development reimbursement
• Catalog of courses for professional learning and development
• Short and long-term disability
• Flexible PTO (after a 90-day introductory period)
• Paid Parental Leave and Adoption benefits (after 1 year of employment)
• 11 federally recognized holidays
• 2 week holiday office closure in December/January
• 401(k) retirement plan with automatic Merit contribution
• Wellness Benefits/Wellness Resources
• Discount perks at work program
• Phone/technology stipend
• Home office setup stipend
• Affinity groups and community building via virtual, in-person, and/or regional meetups