Assistant Dean for Clinical Partnerships & Workforce Development

The Assistant Dean for Clinical Partnerships provides strategic leadership, oversight, and advancement of clinical education partnerships across the Creighton University College of Nursing (CON). This senior leadership position is responsible for developing, maintaining, and expanding relationships with healthcare systems, community agencies, clinical facilities, educational institutions, and workforce partners to ensure high-quality clinical learning experiences for undergraduate and graduate nursing students.

The Assistant Dean serves as the College''s primary liaison to clinical partners and is the central point of contact for interpreting, communicating, and operationalizing individual healthcare system requirements related to student and faculty clinical placement. This role ensures the College maintains a comprehensive understanding of partner-specific onboarding, compliance, credentialing, and access standards while collaborating closely with the CEOA Hub to facilitate the timely execution of all clinical entrance requirements. The Assistant Dean works proactively to resolve barriers, promote consistency across clinical sites, and ensure compliance with institutional, regulatory, and partner expectations.

The Assistant Dean provides leadership for clinical education and partnership activities across all undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. This position supervises a team of clinical placement specialists responsible for coordinating student placements, maintaining clinical capacity, and supporting partner relationships. The Assistant Dean ensures clinical placement forecasts, enrollment projections, and workforce demand analyses are proactively communicated to internal and external stakeholders to optimize clinical capacity, support program growth, and align educational resources with healthcare workforce needs. The Assistant Dean leverages data and predictive analytics to guide clinical placement strategy, identify capacity constraints, and inform decisions that support sustainable enrollment growth across all nursing programs. In collaboration with academic leadership and operational teams, the Assistant Dean ensures College policies, clinical education processes, onboarding requirements, and student procedures remain current, compliant, consistently implemented, and effectively communicated across all programs.

The Assistant Dean is also responsible for cultivating and strengthening strategic partnerships that enhance the College''s impact on regional workforce development. In collaboration with the Dean and CON leadership, this position develops innovative workforce pipeline initiatives that increase the recruitment and retention of Creighton graduates within the Nebraska and Arizona healthcare markets, with particular emphasis on addressing local and rural workforce shortages. The Assistant Dean partners with healthcare organizations to expand internship, externship, residency, transition-to-practice, and employment opportunities that enhance student competitiveness, improve workforce readiness, and strengthen sustainable workforce pipelines for partner organizations.

In addition, the Assistant Dean provides strategic oversight of clinical partnership operations, including the development and maintenance of affiliation agreements, preceptor engagement, workforce development initiatives, and continuous improvement of clinical placement processes. Working collaboratively with academic leadership, faculty, compliance personnel, legal counsel, healthcare executives, community stakeholders, and the CEOA Hub, this position aligns clinical education operations with the strategic mission of the College while supporting accreditation standards, regulatory requirements, and evolving workforce needs.

As a member of the Dean''s leadership team, the Assistant Dean contributes to strategic planning, operational excellence, partnership development, innovation in clinical education, and the development of long-term strategies that position the College of Nursing as a preferred academic partner and workforce pipeline for healthcare organizations across Nebraska, Arizona, and the surrounding region.

Essential Functions:

Strategic Clinical Partnership Development

• Develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive clinical partnership strategy aligned with the College''s strategic plan, enrollment growth objectives, and workforce priorities.
• Develop, cultivate, and sustain strategic relationships with healthcare organizations, community agencies, government entities, educational institutions, and clinical partners.
• Serve as the College''s primary representative and executive liaison for clinical education partnerships.
• Collaborate with the Dean to establish innovative workforce pipeline programs that strengthen recruitment, retention, and employment of Creighton graduates within Nebraska, Arizona, and rural and underserved communities.
• Expand strategic partnerships that increase student participation in internships, externships, nurse residency, transition-to-practice, employer-sponsored scholarship programs, and other workforce development initiatives.
• Identify and secure new clinical placement opportunities supporting enrollment growth and workforce needs.
• Analyze regional workforce trends and clinical capacity to identify opportunities for academic-practice partnerships.
• Represent the College in regional, state, and national workforce initiatives.
• Lead relationships with major health systems and community partners.

Clinical Placement and Operations Leadership

• Provide strategic leadership and oversight of all undergraduate and graduate clinical placement operations.
• Supervise, mentor, and evaluate a team of clinical placement specialists.
• Establish operational priorities, workflows, and quality metrics for the placement team.
• Direct clinical placement planning, site acquisition, capacity management, and resource allocation.
• Utilize enrollment projections, workforce demand analyses, predictive analytics, and capacity modeling to guide placement strategy.
• Collaborate with academic leaders to forecast placement needs and optimize capacity.
• Ensure clinical capacity forecasts are communicated regularly to academic leadership and healthcare partners.
• Oversee optimization of clinical placement technologies in collaboration with college data and implementation team.

Contract Management, Clinical Compliance, and Onboarding

• Provide strategic leadership for the College''s clinical affiliation agreements, onboarding, credentialing, and compliance processes across undergraduate and graduate programs.
• Manage affiliation agreements, renewals, and regulatory compliance in collaboration with university stakeholders, CON leadership, and the CEOA Hub.
• Serve as the College''s subject matter expert on health system-specific clinical access, onboarding, credentialing, and compliance requirements.
• Partner with the CEOA Hub to standardize and continuously improve student and faculty onboarding processes while ensuring partner-specific requirements are met.
• Ensure College policies, clinical compliance processes, and onboarding requirements remain current with university, regulatory, accreditation, and health system expectations.
• Communicate changes in clinical compliance requirements to academic leadership and relevant stakeholders.
• Monitor compliance metrics, identify opportunities for process improvement, and implement strategies that enhance operational efficiency and compliance outcomes.

Preceptor and Clinical Faculty Engagement

• Develop strategic initiatives to increase the number, diversity, and sustainability of qualified preceptors.
• Collaborate with partners to enhance preceptor recruitment, recognition, engagement, and retention.
• Lead recruitment, orientation, development, and recognition of preceptors.
• Support DEU models and innovative clinical education initiatives.
• Monitor evaluations and improve educational quality.

Quality Improvement

• Establish KPIs and dashboards to evaluate partnership effectiveness, capacity, compliance, workforce outcomes, and student success.
• Utilize data analytics to forecast capacity and drive continuous improvement.
• Prepare reports supporting accreditation and executive decision-making.
• Lead quality improvement initiatives that enhance clinical learning environments.

Leadership and Administration

• Serve as a member of the College leadership team and strategic advisor to the Dean.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives involving Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, the CEOA Hub, Legal Counsel,

Advancement, Compliance, and healthcare partners.

• Supervise clinical placement personnel.
• Represent the College with executive healthcare leaders and community stakeholders.
• Lead organizational change initiatives across multiple campuses and programs.
• Participate in strategic planning, budgeting, enrollment growth, workforce development, and accreditation.

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Nursing from an accredited institution

Master's degree in nursing or other related field such as business, leadership or human resources.

Current, unencumbered registered nurse licensure or eligibility for licensure in Nebraska and Arizona.

Minimum of five years of progressively responsible leadership experience in nursing education, clinical operations, healthcare/nursing administration, or academic-practice partnerships.

Demonstrated experience developing and managing relationships with healthcare organizations and community partners.

Experience with clinical placements, compliance management, accreditation requirements, and clinical education operations.

Strong organizational, communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Preferred Qualifications

Earned doctorate (DNP, PhD, EdD, or related discipline).

Academic leadership experience in higher education.

Experience with CCNE accreditation and regulatory compliance processes.

Experience managing affiliation agreements and clinical contracts.

Experience with clinical placement software systems, eValue, Exxat, MCE, or similar platforms.

Reports directly to the Dean of the College of Nursing and serves as a member of the Dean''s leadership team. Collaborates closely with assistant deans, program directors, department chairs, and faculty leaders.

Creighton University is committed to providing a safe and non-discriminatory educational and employment environment. The University admits qualified students, hires qualified employees and accepts patients for treatment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, age, disability, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or other status protected by law. Its education and employment policies, scholarship and loan programs, and other programs and activities, are administered without unlawful discrimination. Creighton complies with all applicable laws and regulations governing equal opportunity in the workplace and in educational activities.

Applicants with disabilities needing reasonable accommodations to complete the application or hiring process should contact Human Resources at HR@creighton.edu. Creighton University seeks candidates who understand, respect, and can contribute to the University''s mission and values.