[Hiring] Director of First-Year Experience @Berea College

Role Description

The Director of First-Year Experience provides visionary leadership and strategic direction for Berea College’s comprehensive first-year student success ecosystem, including:

• New student orientation
• Summer transition programming, including Summer Bridge
• The First-Year Summit
• First-year academic success initiatives

Reporting to the Executive Director of Student Success, this position serves as a key architect of the College’s approach to supporting students from enrollment through their successful transition into the academic, social, and campus life experience. The Director leads the design, implementation, assessment, and continuous improvement of high-impact practices that promote:

• Student belonging
• Academic achievement
• Persistence
• Retention

This position integrates advising, teaching, mentoring, and transition programming to create a seamless first-year experience aligned with Berea College’s mission, Great Commitments, and institutional student success priorities.

The Director serves as a strategic collaborator across campus, partnering with:

• Academic Affairs
• The Office of Advising and Retention Strategy
• Admissions
• Student Affairs
• The Labor Program Office
• Athletics
• Other campus stakeholders

This individual will serve as both a strategic leader and practitioner, teaching first-year courses, advising students, developing educators and mentors, and using data-informed practices to enhance the student experience.

Following long-standing tradition and practice at Berea College, this position includes responsibility for supervising, mentoring, and developing students in the College's integrated Work College Program, which supports:

• Student learning
• Career readiness
• The program's learning goals and outcomes

The Work College Program provides a developmental framework that guides student learning while creating a structured mentorship opportunity, with role-specific training that equips faculty and staff mentors to support student development.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree required
• Demonstrated success in teaching and training
• At least three years of relevant experience in student success, first-year programming, advising, retention, or related program administration
• A record of outstanding student success programming direction and a commitment to access
• Experience working with students and diverse populations
• Classroom experience in postsecondary or K-12 education preferred

Requirements

• Knowledge of best practices for supporting the unique needs of first-year students
• Essential qualities include initiative, flexibility, creativity, and commitment to collaboration
• Evidence of strong leadership as well as organization and communication skills
• Excellent oral/written communication and superior interpersonal skills with the ability to work constructively and collaboratively in a team setting
• Strong organizational skills and capacity to set priorities and attention to detail
• Three or more years of experience in program planning, coordination, and evaluation
• Demonstrated aptitude for analyzing data and applying findings to direct student success programming, track student success, and implement continuous improvement efforts
• Computer skills
• Ability to maintain confidentiality
• Driver’s license

Benefits

• Ability to sit or stand for extended periods while working at a computer or attending meetings
• Ability to use regular office equipment
• Fast-paced indoor office environment, interactions across campus and in public venues
• Professional office environment with interruptions and noise due to frequent visitors, students, staff, and faculty
• Occasional travel required for meetings, conferences, etc.
• Ability to operate standard office equipment: computer, photocopier/scanner, phone, etc.
• Ability to drive a van for student outings as part of the Bridge program

Company Description

Founded in 1855, Berea College is nationally recognized as the first coeducational and interracial college in the South. Berea has a longstanding commitment to interracial education and is one of the most racially diverse private liberal arts colleges in the United States. With an emphasis on service to Appalachia and beyond, Berea enrolls more than 1,500 students from 46 states and U.S. territories and more than 70 countries. Berea College admits students who are unable to afford tuition and provides all of them with a no-tuition promise.

Berea’s students excel in the College’s supportive yet demanding academic environment, and most are the first in their families to attend college. As one of only ten federally recognized Work Colleges, all Berea students are expected to work 10-12 hours weekly in various positions across campus.

Berea College is also the only institution in Kentucky to receive the 5-Star Rating from Money Magazine, 2025. Washington Monthly has named Berea College the #1 Best College in the nation in its 2025 College Guide.

Berea College appears in their rankings as:

• #1 College (overall): Best College for your Tuition (and Tax) Dollars
• #1 Best-in Class College
• #1 Liberal Arts College
• #1 Best Bang for the Buck Southern College

Located where the Bluegrass Region meets the Cumberland Mountains, the town of Berea (pop. 16,000) lies forty miles south of Lexington and is approximately two hours from Cincinnati, Louisville, and Knoxville. More information about Berea College is available at www.berea.edu .

Berea College, in light of its mission in the tradition of impartial love and social equality, welcomes all people of the earth to learn and work here.

Berea College is always looking for talented, self-motivated individuals to join our team. If you think you are ready to be a part of an exciting team, then we encourage you to continue with this applicant-friendly, online job application!

Berea College is an Equal Opportunity Employer that recruits and hires qualified candidates without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.