Chancellor

Chancellor

The State Board for Community Colleges of the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) invites nominations and applications for the position of Chancellor. The next chancellor will join VCCS at a time of great excitement and forward momentum, building upon the many successes of the current chancellor, Glen DuBois, a national leader in higher education and VCCS’s longest serving chancellor in its 54-year history. The Virginia Community College System oversees a network of 23 community colleges in Virginia, which serve residents of Virginia and provide two-year degrees and various specialty training and certifications. VCCS’s colleges are geographically diverse and serve more than 218,000 students.

The State Board of Community Colleges of the Virginia Community College System is positioned to continue its progressive trajectory as a national model for promoting the value of higher education, meeting public accountability, and building partnerships. The State Board seeks a leader to galvanize the commonwealth and its diverse communities around its compelling vision for the future. Broadening educational opportunity requires strong leadership and an understanding of how to utilize public policy and public/private investment in today’s education environment.

The opportunities for the system and its chancellor abound. VCCS’s latest strategic plan, Opportunity 2027, is quite ambitious with its main objective requiring that the state’s community colleges “achieve equity in access, learning outcomes, and success for students from every race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic group.” The system and institutions, administrators, faculty, and staff are all cohesive in their commitment to support this goal. However, to achieve this goal, the next chancellor must have considerable experience and skill, and be a strong leader and manager of people and programs. 

The next chancellor will have significant senior-level administrative experience in an educational, governmental, or business environment and understand the most important issues affecting higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia and nationally. The chancellor will have strong communication and human relations skills to lead a complex organization with multiple constituencies. It is also imperative that the next chancellor understand the educational value of full access and inclusion and the mission of community colleges in supporting the economic health of their communities. A personal commitment to and a strong vision for diversity, equity, and inclusion, anti-racism, and a passion for serving first generation, economically disadvantaged, and minority students and promoting a campus and community culture that celebrates diversity and inclusion is critically important.

The ideal candidate should also have a history of successful experience with:

• Bringing bold, new vision to propel higher education institutions to greater heights.
• Helping institutions achieve national prominence by advancing higher education and fulfilling the legislative mandates.
• Casting a compelling vision for the future of higher education and effectively leading constituents in achieving that vision.
• Awareness of contemporary trends in community college education and in successfully advocating for the needs of community colleges.
• Crafting seamless alignment among public institutions, even when there are competing priorities.
• Leading innovative best practices for effective and efficient results for quality improvement.
• Attracting traditional and non-traditional students into both transfer and workforce programs and promoting approaches to enhance their opportunities for success.
• Budgetary decision-making framed by the financial issues currently facing higher education.
• Identifying and recruiting high quality talent committed to excellence at all levels and in all areas of the institution—and a record of building, empowering, mentoring, and holding accountable, a strong, skilled, and collaborative leadership team.
• Crisis management skills.
• Supporting entrepreneurial opportunities.
• Employee engagement and effectiveness.
• Promoting collaboration and unity at all levels within the system.
• Securing resources to further the mission of the system.
• Being politically proactive with proven advocacy skills leading and lending influence effectively at the state, federal, and local levels of government.
• A track record of increasing management responsibility and skills that will assist the colleges in growing enrollment and retention.
• Increasing workforce readiness throughout the state and strengthening economic development partners in response to regional and national labor market needs.
• Demonstrating a commitment to the use of technology to improve student learning, to deliver high quality instruction via distance education, and to support excellence in delivering services to students and in achieving administrative efficiency.
• Addressing critical issues for students including housing insecurity, food insecurity, and mental health.

How to Apply

Greenwood/Asher & Associates, Inc. is assisting VCCS in this search. Applications and nominations are now being accepted. For a full application package, please include a cover letter, CV, and list of five references. Confidential inquiries, nominations and application materials should be directed to Greenwood/Asher and Associates. Submission of application materials as PDF attachments is strongly encouraged. Initial screening of applications will begin immediately and will continue until an appointment is made.

Inquiries, nominations, and application materials should be directed to:

Betty Turner Asher, Founder, Greenwood/Asher & Associates

Vice President and Managing Partner, Kelly

Julie Holley, Senior Executive Search Consultant

E-mail: bettyasher@greenwoodsearch.com 

E-mail: julieholley@greenwoodsearch.com

The Virginia Community College System, an EEO employer, welcomes applications from people of all backgrounds and recognizes the benefits of a diverse workforce. Therefore, the VCCS is committed to providing a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. Employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications. We prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, mental or physical disabilities, political affiliation, veteran status, gender identity, or other non-merit factors.

The VCCS is an EOE and Affirmative Action Employer. In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Acts (ADA and ADAAA), VCCS will provide, if requested, reasonable accommodation to applicants in need of access to the application, interviewing and selection processes.