If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Job Description

As the foundational leader in competency-based education, WGU deploys a unique faculty model with specialized functions in order to serve populations underserved by traditional models of higher education. To achieve its mission, WGU utilizes a master curriculum with high-stakes assessments designed by assessment experts and administered by a specialized evaluation department to ensure high quality, dramatically quick evaluation of competency. In 2024, this model allowed WGU to serve over 280,000 students with 2.8 million faculty-scored assessments with robust feedback in an average 30-hour turnaround and another million computer-scored assessments delivered in a secure, but convenient, testing environment.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Academic Delivery, the Vice President, Evaluation has the exceptionally meaningful opportunity to define and lead the evaluation function for WGU.  In this role, this senior leader will lead and support high performing directors, people leaders, and evaluation faculty and staff to inspire and assess students across all populations, as they develop and demonstrate workforce relevant skills and competencies within the coursework comprising program offered by WGU’s schools and colleges. Through directors dedicated to each school (and colleges therein), this position is responsible for hiring, retaining, managing, and developing sufficiently qualified faculty and leaders to provide personalized evaluation support at scale. Ever vigilant to unit cost and operational excellence, this VP will drive positive impact to WGU’s Key Results (Completion, Return for Graduates, and Equity) via student outcomes at the course level. This VP must think innovatively, embracing the latest research, technologies and inclusive workforce strategies to transform the human work of learning and assessment so that it works for all, at WGU and beyond.  

This VP ensures that students receive an accurate, fair, helpful and quick determination of competency, deploying over 1,600 subject matter experts following the best in assessment and operational practices powered by best-in-class technologies.  This individual aligns the evaluation function within WGU’s community of care to achieve WGU’s strategic academic goals while leading the disruptive innovation of higher education.  This VP is expected to challenge the current evaluation system with innovative disruption to enable WGU to scale.  Thus, the VP is heavily involved in change management and strategic thinking for teams across academics, the university and the WGU system and uses exceptional communication, negotiation, and presentation skills to foster a positive and innovative atmosphere within a dynamic environment. 

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

Lead, innovate, and improve WGU evaluation practice and related faculty models in alignment with academic governance, service agreements, and course resource documents. Drive a culture of continuous experimentation, measurement, and learning from data to rapidly improve the quality and delivery of assessments to students. Lead, innovate, and improve WGU’s academic authenticity policies and procedures, to optimize the balance between protecting the value of WGU degrees and credentials, without adding undue friction to the student journey. This will require ongoing research, networking, and proactively understanding threats.  Exhibit, lead, and develop sound financial stewardship for evaluation expense, with a specific focus on supporting significant growth while optimizing unit economics for evaluation to achieve successful student, program, school/college, and university outcomes.  Exhibit, lead, and develop accountability for evaluation operations to deliver successful student, program, school/college, and university outcomes.  Set ambitious, clear, and achievable goals for evaluation at WGU based on strategic priorities of the university. Inspire and motivate evaluation teams to meet and exceed expectations.  Develop and recruit top talent and future leaders. Implement and iterate on staffing models and operations to continually raise the bar for impact on student outcomes through effective workforce planning. Collaborate with academic and administrative leadership, faculty, and team members across the university to serve students. Authentically reflect and portray the mission of WGU, internally and externally. Contribute to the advancement of WGU’s culture and practices consistent with its brand, differentiation, and desired employee experience. Aggressively network and research trends in related and unrelated fields to innovate and improve the student assessment experience at scale, communicating that research to colleagues and stakeholders and leading the analysis, adoption and implementation. Perform other related duties as assigned. 

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

Student focus: Always keeps the student at the center of what we do, and why we do it.   Influences Others and Communicates Effectively: Communicates to improve and promote teamwork, decision making, and problem solving. Listens and responds effectively to the reactions and positions of others and encourages the expression of diverse ideas and opinions. Adjusts message and style to fit the audience. Provides timely and helpful feedback. Communicates appropriately to win support with all audiences.  Collaborates: Works cooperatively with others across the organization to achieve shared objectives. Represents own interests while being fair to others and their areas. Partners with others to get work done. Credits others for their contributions and accomplishments. Gains buy-in, trust and support of others.  Manages Ambiguity: Deals comfortably with the uncertainty of change. Effectively handles risk. Decides to act without the total picture. Is calm and productive, even when things are up in the air. Deals constructively with problems that do not have clear solutions or outcomes.  Drives for Results: Has a strong outcomes-based orientation. Persists in accomplishing objectives despite obstacles and setbacks. Has a track record of successfully achieving goals. Pushes self and helps others achieve results. Has a continuous improvement mindset.  Builds Effective Teams:   Forms teams with appropriate and diverse mixes of styles, perspectives, and experience. Establishes common objectives and a shared mindset. Creates a feeling of belonging and strong team morale. Shares wins and rewards team efforts. Fosters open dialogue and collaboration among the team. Creates a team that works well cross-functionally.  Organizational Learning: Learns quickly when facing new situations. Experiments to find new solutions. Takes on challenges of unfamiliar tasks. Extracts lessons-learned from failures and mistakes. Expands knowledge base through ongoing curiosity.  

Competencies: 

Organizational Impact:   

Head of an Office or Function with significant impact on the Unit or University.  Accountable for the overall performance and success of assigned area. Establishes and implements tactical and operational plans for the department, with broad impact on other areas. Oversees development of programs to support the University’s mission, vision, and goals, as well as develops policies and programs for the improvement of operations across the University.  Assumes responsibility for financial management of the department.  

Problem Solving & Decision Making: 

Responsible for improving entire processes, programs, or systems.  Problems faced are frequently complex and multi-dimensional, requiring broad-based consideration of variables that affect areas outside of immediate responsibility. Extensively analyzes problems to seek understanding of the underlying issues.  

Communication & Influence: 

Communicates within and outside of the department and typically has responsibilities for communicating with external contacts.  Interacts internally with executive level management to influence and negotiate on sensitive matters, policy, and practices.   

Leadership & Talent Management 

Manages multiple teams led by directors.Has hiring, firing, promotion, performance development, and reward authority for direct reports.

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

Master’s Degree or other advanced degree Proven track record of implementing data-driven innovation & organizational change  Ten years of significant people leadership experience, including leading leaders  

Preferred Qualifications:

Terminal Degree in education, engineering, business or other area relevant to the role Demonstrated P&L accountability (expense side sufficient) Work experience with competency-based education Work experience in evaluation, assessment or other means of competency validation in education, military or industry Experience and/or demonstrated interest in underserved populations 

Working Conditions:

Travel to Commencement Ceremonies, School Summits meetings and other WGU locations.  The position is based in WGU’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Transition, relocation and commuting arrangements can be negotiated for a strong candidate.   Travel outside of Salt Lake City may be expected at least monthly as the position networks toward innovation and thought leadership. 

Physical Requirements:

Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Opportunity Employer: We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.