Featured Gig: Asst. Dean for Engineering for Professionals, JHU

Dan Horn, affiliate vice dean for skilled schooling on the Whiting College of Engineering at Johns Hopkins College, reached out to me a couple of search he’s operating for an assistant dean for Engineering for Professionals.

In his electronic mail, Dan wrote: “It is a crucial function at Johns Hopkins, serving to to guide the most important division on the College (6,500+ on-line college students). I’d very very similar to the extra publicity for the itemizing.”

This chance looks as if an ideal match for Featured Gigs, so I requested Dan to reply my questions in regards to the function.

Q: What’s the college’s mandate behind this function? How does it assist align with and advance the college’s strategic priorities?

A: Engineering for Professionals (EP) is among the nation’s largest suppliers of graduate engineering schooling for working professionals, and the assistant dean will play an infinite function in shaping the subsequent chapter of that success. Our management has witnessed our capacity to scale up and has requested EP to spice up the varsity’s affect within the engineering group. Together with that comes the expectation that we proceed to ship an distinctive tutorial expertise to college students around the globe.

Over the subsequent decade, we plan to considerably broaden the attain of our present 26 on-line grasp’s diploma applications and 32 credit-bearing certificates applications and add in each classes, to allow extra engineers and technical leaders to entry a JHU schooling. Attaining that progress shouldn’t be merely about growing enrollment—we’re severe about extending the varsity’s affect, advancing workforce improvement and creating new alternatives for innovation in engineering schooling, notably within the age of AI.

The assistant dean can be one of many key leaders accountable for translating that imaginative and prescient into actuality. They’ll form enrollment and program progress methods and consider new alternatives whereas sustaining and enhancing tutorial high quality—we’ve by no means seen these as mutually unique targets! Our repute is one among our biggest belongings, and sustaining the excellence that drives pupil success, college engagement and nationwide recognition can be a core duty of the function.

A very essential side of the place is oversight of our course analysis and steady enchancment processes. We place vital worth on pupil suggestions and use it to tell selections about curriculum, instruction and program high quality. The assistant dean could have the chance to strengthen these programs and assist be sure that information and pupil insights translate into significant enhancements within the studying expertise.

What makes this function particularly compelling is the mix of scale, affect and affect. Few positions provide the chance to assist lead an academic enterprise of this measurement whereas concurrently shaping technique round progress, high quality, innovation and pupil success. The profitable candidate could have the chance to affect how one of many world’s main engineering colleges serves the subsequent era of engineering professionals.

Q: The place does the function sit throughout the college construction? How will the particular person on this function have interaction with different items and leaders throughout campus? Is the function in particular person, hybrid or distant eligible?

A: As a result of Hopkins is each entrepreneurial and decentralized, this function gives a novel mixture of autonomy and collaboration. The assistant dean will work most intently with EP program chairs and workers all through the Whiting College of Engineering. However by means of collaborations coordinated by the Workplace of the Provost and different universitywide initiatives, the assistant dean could have alternatives to work alongside friends from the college’s 10 different divisions, sharing finest practices and serving to form institutional conversations round graduate schooling, on-line studying, pupil success and tutorial innovation. So that you profit from the pliability of decentralization with the information sources of a a lot bigger establishment.

The function follows a hybrid work mannequin, with an expectation of roughly two days per week in our newly renovated workplaces in Baltimore. The Homewood campus and our new Mount Washington facility typically shock first-time guests; these are lovely, inexperienced and walkable environments providing the sources and power of a world-class analysis college.

Q: What would success appear to be in a single 12 months? Three years? Past?

A: Within the first 12 months, success can be measured much less by the variety of main organizational modifications made and extra by the flexibility to develop a deep understanding of our college students, applications, college and operations. The assistant dean will expertise a full annual cycle of planning, budgeting, reporting, enrollment administration, tutorial assessment and pupil engagement actions, and an important first 12 months will imply incomes their belief, understanding what makes the group profitable and figuring out alternatives for enchancment and innovation.

By 12 months three, I’d count on the assistant dean to function as a totally impartial strategic chief throughout the group. They’ll form selections round program progress, pupil success, tutorial high quality, useful resource allocation and long-term technique. Simply as importantly, I’d count on them to have launched initiatives that mirror their very own pursuits and experience, whether or not that’s advancing AI-enabled instructing and studying, designing new approaches to monetary assist and affordability, or creating new credentials.

Past that, I see this function as one with super potential for progress. Engineering for Professionals is a big and evolving enterprise, and there’s quite a lot of alternative for the assistant dean to broaden the scope of the place. We’re trying for somebody who desires to go away a long-lasting mark on how one of many nation’s main engineering colleges serves working professionals and advances the way forward for graduate schooling. I can’t state this typically or clearly sufficient: The problem—and alternative—is balancing progress, innovation, affordability and tutorial high quality at scale.

Q: What sorts of future roles would somebody who took this place be ready for?

A: I’d say that this function gives unusually broad preparation for senior management positions in larger schooling as a result of it sits on the intersection of educational affairs, technique, enrollment administration, finance, institutional analysis, program improvement, college engagement and organizational management. I’ve seen colleagues who reach roles like this transfer into positions with titles like affiliate dean, dean, vice provost, chief on-line studying officer or different senior tutorial management roles. Expertise overseeing a big portfolio of graduate applications, managing vital revenues, working intently with college leaders and operating strategic initiatives is valued in all places—at Johns Hopkins and throughout larger schooling.

Johns Hopkins additionally has an exceptionally robust historical past of supporting inner profession mobility and management improvement. Many members of our management crew started in roles with narrower duties and grew into more and more vital positions over time. I actually did. Whether or not the assistant dean advances inside Hopkins or seeks alternatives elsewhere, they’ll depart this function with a monitor document of driving significant institutional affect for a large-scale instructional group.