Student Success Specialist

The Student Success Specialist provides high-touch support for continuing and prospective students, faculty, and staff that centers the student experience (and ensures that they are engaged in ways that make the students feel as welcome and supported as possible). This work will be guided along five key areas:

Addressing traditional enrollment and advising issues: answer common enrollment and advising questions, including those around academic policies and procedures, helping students navigate the academic space through the many choices and decision points, redirecting to other offices when necessary (but always in ways that contribute to a good student experience).

Strengthening (academic) belonging: collaborate with others in the Academic Success Center and partners in Student Affairs, Admissions, Academic Departments and many others to develop and implement both proactive and reactive initiatives, programming, outreach, and events that support specific populations. There will be specific attention paid to the various identities that students express as important, and particularly in support of a greater sense of belonging in support of greater academic success. These identities can include matters of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, socioeconomic standing, transfer status, geography, first generation status, and more.

Managing student cases to close the gap between achievement and potential: work closely with an assigned caseload of students to provide holistic student support. This includes but is not limited to: connecting students to campus and community resources; providing academic and non-academic support, identifying student's strengths and goals to create a personal plan of action for the completion of their respective degree program, and serving as liaison between students, faculty, and other campus partners.

Amplifying use of data to inform the work: utilize predictive and program analytics to monitor student progression, identify students in need and appropriate outreach to those students, and develop individualized support plans that connect to larger institutional resources and opportunities.

Promoting high impact practices and high achievement opportunities: help students connect to opportunities and high impact practices--research, internship, study abroad, and others--that better prepare them to have greater success not just while here at UNCA, but beyond.The Student Success Specialist should be prepared to work in an office that balances continuous improvement and creative thinking to offer the best possible experience and support for students, but also provides a stable set of protocols that will have been developed with shared governance and adhere to the overall vision of Academic Affairs, the University, and the System.