Microcredentials and Skills-Based Learning Program Director

Help shape the future of learning, achievement, and career readiness at Brandeis University.

What if students could demonstrate not only what they have learned, but what they can do?

Brandeis University is seeking an innovative, strategic, and collaborative Microcredentials and Skills-Based Learning Program Director to lead the development and growth of a university-wide microcredential ecosystem. This is an exciting opportunity to help transform how students’ skills, competencies, and applied learning experiences are recognized, documented, and communicated to employers, graduate schools, and the broader professional community.

As higher education and the workforce continue to evolve, students need meaningful ways to demonstrate the knowledge and capabilities they develop throughout their academic journeys. The Program Director will play a pivotal role in connecting Brandeis’s academic strengths with emerging workforce needs—creating high-quality, market-informed credentials that enhance the student experience and support lifelong career success.

Working across the university, this leader will establish the strategy, infrastructure, standards, and processes that bring microcredentials from concept to implementation, assessment, and continuous improvement. The position will partner closely with the Office of the Provost, which leads faculty engagement and faculty-related aspects of microcredential development, while taking ownership of the broader program lifecycle, including assessment, student engagement, employer connections, technology, operations, and credential issuance.

This is an opportunity for a forward-thinking leader who enjoys building something new, bringing people together, and translating ideas into impactful programs that create lasting value for students and the university.

Hiring Range: $96,500 - $104,200.

Key Responsibilities

Lead Strategy, Development, and Program Excellence

• Shape and advance Brandeis’s university-wide strategy for microcredentials, skills-based learning, digital badges, and alternative credentials.
• Identify opportunities for new credentials that reflect the university’s academic strengths, student interests, interdisciplinary opportunities, and evolving workforce needs.
• Establish clear guidelines, standards, and processes for proposing, approving, launching, assessing, and reviewing microcredentials.
• Ensure the quality, consistency, rigor, and relevance of credentials across the university.
• Build and maintain a comprehensive inventory of current and planned microcredentials.
• Develop assessment frameworks that verify students’ mastery of competencies through meaningful evidence of learning, including portfolios, projects, presentations, demonstrations, and other applied assessments.
• Analyze program outcomes and assessment data to guide continuous improvement and ensure credentials remain academically meaningful and relevant to the marketplace.

Build Strong Academic and Faculty Partnerships

• Partner closely with the Office of the Provost to support faculty collaboration and the successful development of microcredentials.
• Provide expertise and guidance on competency mapping, learning outcomes, assessment strategies, and evidence of student achievement.
• Help ensure credentials demonstrate meaningful skill development and mastery—not simply course or activity completion.
• Encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and opportunities across academic departments and schools.

Connect Student Learning to Career Success

• Develop engaging outreach and marketing strategies that build awareness of microcredentials and encourage student participation.
• Collaborate with Career Services to connect credentials to career pathways, employer expectations, and emerging professional opportunities.
• Help students effectively communicate their accomplishments through resumes, LinkedIn profiles, digital portfolios, and Brandeis credentialing platforms.
• Integrate microcredentials into the broader student career-readiness experience, helping students translate their academic learning into a compelling story of their skills and capabilities.

Strengthen Employer and External Partnerships

• Work with Career Services and other university partners to understand emerging workforce trends and identify in-demand skills.
• Incorporate employer and industry perspectives into credential development and assessment strategies.
• Cultivate external relationships that strengthen the relevance, visibility, and recognition of Brandeis-issued credentials.
• Help position Brandeis as an innovative leader in connecting higher education with the evolving world of work.

Oversee Technology, Data, and Program Operations

• Manage relationships with credentialing and digital badging platform providers, including Suitable.
• Partner with the Registrar, Institutional Research, Information Technology, and other university teams to support accurate tracking of student progress and achievement.
• Establish effective processes for credential approval, issuance, verification, reporting, and analytics.
• Support the integration of microcredential data into student records, the second transcript, career platforms, and institutional reporting systems.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree.
• Eight or more years of progressively responsible experience in higher education, workforce development, professional learning, instructional design, career services, or a related field.
• Demonstrated success leading complex, cross-functional initiatives involving academic and administrative partners.
• Strong understanding of competency-based education, skills frameworks, alternative credentials, or related approaches to documenting learning and achievement.
• Exceptional communication, relationship-building, organizational, and project management skills.
• Ability to develop strategy while also managing the operational details required to bring complex initiatives to life.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience developing or managing microcredentials, certificates, digital badges, or other non-degree credentials.
• Demonstrated success partnering with faculty and academic governance bodies.
• Familiarity with employer talent needs, workforce trends, and evolving skill requirements.
• Experience with learning management systems, credentialing platforms, and/or student information systems.
• Experience using data and assessment analytics to evaluate program effectiveness and guide improvement.

Core Competencies

• Strategic vision and program development
• Faculty and stakeholder engagement
• Cross-functional collaboration and influence
• Project and change management
• Competency and assessment design
• Innovation and continuous improvement
• Data-informed decision-making
• Excellent written and verbal communication

Why This Role Matters

At Brandeis, this role offers the opportunity to help shape an important part of the university’s future. The successful candidate will build the framework that enables students to make their skills visible, demonstrate their accomplishments, and communicate the value of their Brandeis education throughout their careers.

Join us in creating new ways for students to demonstrate what they know, what they can do, and what they are prepared to accomplish.

The University's pay ranges represent a good faith estimate of what Brandeis reasonably expects to pay for a position at the time of posting. The pay offered to a selected candidate during hiring will be based on factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate's work experience and education/training, internal peer equity, and applicable legal requirements.

Brandeis University is an equal opportunity employer which does not discriminate against any applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religious creed, gender identity and expression, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, genetic information, disability, caste, military or veteran status or any other category protected by law (also known as membership in a "protected class").