Dean of Experiential Learning, Career Development and Employer Partnerships

The Opportunity

Merrimack College invites applications for an Executive Director 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 Executive Director 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 Executive Director 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 Executive Director 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 Executive Director 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.
• Help communicate Merrimack's distinctive approach to experiential learning and career development to prospective students, families, employers, alumni, and external partners.

Priorities for the New Executive Director

During the first several years, the Executive Director will be expected to:

• Successfully integrate the work of the O'Brien and Scammon Centers around a shared institutional strategy.
• Expand Merrimack's network of employers and strategic talent partners.
• Significantly increase access to high-quality experiential opportunities for students across all academic disciplines.
• Deepen collaboration with faculty and academic leadership.
• Establish clear performance measures and accountability for student and employer outcomes.
• Build the organizational capacity required to scale Merrimack's experiential-learning and career-development strategy.
• Strengthen Merrimack's reputation as an institution that prepares graduates exceptionally well for meaningful careers and continued professional growth.

The Candidate

Merrimack seeks a leader who combines strategic vision, entrepreneurial energy, strong external instincts, and the ability to build and operate at scale.

The successful candidate will understand that meaningful career preparation depends on an ecosystem of relationships among students, employers, faculty, alumni, and institutional partners-and will have demonstrated success building those relationships.

Candidates should bring many of the following experiences and capabilities:Z

Required Qualifications

• Master's degree in a relevant field.
• Significant progressive experience in one or more relevant areas, including experiential learning, early-career or emerging-talent strategy, campus recruiting, talent acquisition, workforce development, career development, employer relations, cooperative education, internship programs, or university-industry partnerships.
• Demonstrated success building and sustaining relationships with employers and senior external partners.
• Experience leading teams and managing complex initiatives involving multiple stakeholders.
• Evidence of having built, launched, scaled, or substantially transformed programs or organizations.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills.
• Ability to operate effectively at both the strategic and operational levels.
• Demonstrated ability to use data and metrics to assess performance and guide decision-making.
• Strong understanding of contemporary workforce trends and employer expectations for emerging talent.
• Commitment to serving students from a wide range of academic disciplines, backgrounds, experiences, and career aspirations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Eight or more years of progressively responsible experience in a relevant field.
• Experience working across both higher education and the employer or talent-development sectors.
• Experience developing early-career talent programs, campus recruiting strategies, internship or co-op programs, or university-industry partnerships.
• Experience creating employer relationships that generate meaningful student experiences and full-time employment opportunities.
• Knowledge of the Greater Boston and New England employer landscape.
• Experience in a high-growth, entrepreneurial, or organizational transformation environment.
• Understanding of how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are reshaping early-career work and talent development.

Leadership Characteristics

The successful Executive Director will be

A builder.

Someone energized by creating, scaling, and improving programs, partnerships, and organizations.

Externally oriented.

A leader who enjoys developing relationships with employers and other partners and who can open doors for students and the institution.

Employer fluent.

Someone who understands how organizations identify, recruit, develop, and retain emerging talent and can position Merrimack as a valuable partner in that work.

Student centered.

A leader who keeps student learning, opportunity, and long-term success at the center of institutional strategy.

Highly collaborative.

Someone capable of building strong partnerships with faculty, academic leaders, alumni, staff, employers, and senior leadership.

Results oriented.

A leader who defines success, measures progress, and takes accountability for outcomes.

Future focused.

Someone attentive to changes in technology, AI, industries, and the nature of work-and able to translate those changes into new opportunities for students.

Why Merrimack

Merrimack College is a private Catholic Augustinian institution in North Andover, Massachusetts, with a strong record of growth, innovation, and investment in student success.

The College is making experiential learning and career development an increasingly central part of the Merrimack student experience. The Executive Director will have the opportunity to lead talented teams, build significant employer and industry partnerships, work directly with academic and institutional leaders, and shape an emerging model for connecting higher education with the world of work.

For an entrepreneurial leader with experience in talent, education, employer engagement, or workforce development, this role offers the opportunity to build something with both immediate student impact and broader institutional significance.

Application Materials Should Include:

• Resume
• Cover letter stating motivation and interest in the position, citing experience relevant to the qualifications and including experience with, and commitment to, our Catholic Augustinian mission and our values.

This position is subject to the successful completion of a criminal background check.

Statement on Our Mission

Merrimack College is a Catholic Augustinian institution of higher education committed to building an accepting and respectful community. Our mission is to enlighten minds, engage hearts and empower lives and is inspired by our Catholic faith and the Augustinian tradition of seeking truth through inquiry and dialogue.

Merrimack College seeks candidates who understand, respect, and can contribute to Merrimack's Catholic and Augustinian mission. All candidates should describe in their application how they will foster a culture that supports our mission.

About Merrimack College

The only Catholic, Augustinian institution of higher education in New England, Merrimack College is a private, independent, coeducational institution with more than 4,100 undergraduate, 2,500 graduate students and 50 doctoral students from 48 states and 63 countries. The College features more than 160 career-focused undergraduate, professional and graduate programs, all taught by exceptional faculty who are passionate about their subject and student success. The College has six schools: arts and sciences, engineering and computational sciences, nursing and health sciences, education and social policy, the Girard school of business and the graduate school of counseling and social work. The College's suburban 220-acre campus is just north of Boston in North Andover, Massachusetts. Merrimack is a Master's Colleges and Universities/Larger Programs (M1) institution in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Merrimack is one of the fastest growing educational institutions in the country and has steadily climbed up in the U.S. News & World Report's ranking of Best Colleges, ranking 38th in the Regional Universities North category in 2026. Merrimack is a NCAA Division I athletic institution.

Merrimack College is an Equal Opportunity Employer.