Dean of Exp Learning, Career Dev & Empl Partn

Job Description

Job Description

PCN 835

The Opportunity
Merrimack College invites applications for a Dean of Experiential Learning, Career Development and Employer Relations to lead the College’s integrated strategy for experiential learning, career development, and employer engagement.

This is a significant leadership opportunity at a moment of institutional growth and innovation. Merrimack is making a major investment in ensuring that students graduate not only with a strong academic foundation, but also with meaningful professional experience, relationships, skills, confidence, and preparation for an evolving world of work.

The Dean will provide strategic and operational leadership for the O’Brien Center for Career & Professional Development and the James E. & Cynthia E. Scammon Center for Experiential Learning, with the staff of both centers reporting to this position.

The Dean will work closely with academic leaders, faculty, alumni, employers, and other campus partners to advance Merrimack’s institution-wide approach to career readiness and experiential learning.

This is not a traditional career-services role. Merrimack seeks an entrepreneurial, externally oriented leader who can build partnerships, lead teams, develop systems, translate employer needs into student opportunities, and scale an ambitious institutional vision.

The strongest candidates may come from higher education, industry, early-career talent development, campus recruiting, workforce development, employer relations, or a combination of these areas.

One Year Ahead

The Dean will play a central leadership role in advancing Merrimack’s One Year Ahead Initiative, the College’s signature initiative connecting academic learning, experiential education, professional development, and career preparation.

One Year Ahead reflects Merrimack’s commitment to preparing students for a rapidly changing economy by creating meaningful opportunities for professional experience, skill development, mentorship, employer engagement, and career exploration throughout the undergraduate experience.

The Dean will be responsible for translating that institutional commitment into measurable student outcomes and a distinctive competitive advantage for Merrimack.

Key Responsibilities

Provide Strategic Leadership

• Lead Merrimack’s institution-wide strategy for experiential learning, career development, employer engagement, and career readiness.

• Provide leadership, direction, and accountability for the O’Brien Center for Career & Professional Development and the Scammon Center for Experiential Learning.

• Develop a unified vision, operating model, and set of priorities across the two centers.

• Establish clear measures of success and use data to evaluate student participation, employer engagement, program effectiveness, and post-graduate outcomes.

• Advise senior leadership on workforce trends, employer expectations, and emerging opportunities affecting Merrimack students and graduates.

• Build a culture of innovation, collaboration, accountability, and exceptional service to students.

Expand Employer and Industry Partnerships

• Develop and execute an ambitious strategy to expand Merrimack’s relationships with employers in Greater Boston, New England, and selected national markets.

• Personally cultivate relationships with senior leaders in corporations, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, healthcare organizations, research institutions, entrepreneurial ventures, and other organizations.

• Position Merrimack as a valued source of early-career talent and a strategic partner to employers.

• Increase the number, quality, and range of internships, co-ops, employer-sponsored projects, research experiences, mentorship opportunities, and other professionally relevant experiences available to students.

• Create partnerships that extend beyond transactional recruiting to include talent development, mentoring, classroom engagement, experiential projects, and other forms of institutional collaboration.

• Represent Merrimack externally with employers, industry organizations, workforce-development groups, and other partners.

Integrate Career Development and Experiential Learning

• Create strong alignment between career development and experiential learning so that students experience them as part of a coherent journey rather than separate services.

• Partner with deans, faculty, and academic departments to strengthen connections among curriculum, experiential learning, career exploration, and employment outcomes.

• Expand opportunities for students across all majors to participate in meaningful, field-relevant experiences.

• Strengthen connections among students, alumni, employers, faculty, and mentors.

• Help students recognize, articulate, and demonstrate the skills and competencies they develop through academic and experiential learning.

• Ensure that emerging workforce competencies, including AI readiness and digital fluency, are reflected in career-development programming.

Lead and Develop a High-Performing Team

• Lead the professional staff of the O’Brien Center and Scammon Center.

• Establish shared goals, clear responsibilities, and effective collaboration across the two organizations.

• Recruit, develop, coach, and retain a talented team.

• Build staff capacity in employer engagement, student coaching, experiential-learning design, career programming, data, and relationship management.

• Align resources and staffing with institutional priorities and areas of greatest student impact.

• Identify opportunities to use technology and redesigned processes to increase both scale and personalization.

Measure and Communicate Impact

• Establish and monitor key performance indicators related to experiential learning, career readiness, employer engagement, student participation, and post-graduate outcomes.

• Strengthen the College’s ability to understand and communicate the career outcomes of Merrimack graduates.

• Use student, employer, and alumni feedback to continually improve programs and services.

• Provide regular reporting to senior leadership and other institutional stakeholders.