Director of Admissions

About the role

Franciscan University is seeking a highly motivated leader to serve as Director of Admissions. The successful candidate will provide decisive, visible leadership for the undergraduate admissions team and be accountable for delivering the University's annual goals for new student enrollment, student profile, and net tuition revenue. Reporting to the Vice President for Enrollment Management, the Director leads recruitment strategy and daily operations while ensuring prospective students and families encounter Franciscan's Catholic mission and Franciscan character with authenticity, warmth, and responsive service.

Responsibilities

• Deliver enrollment goals through disciplined recruitment strategy, including annual and longer-term goals for new student headcount, student profile, and net tuition revenue.
• Translate enrollment goals into clear priorities for student populations, territories, communication channels, travel, events, and counselor activity.
• Provide visible and effective leadership to the admissions team by hiring, orienting, organizing, retaining, coaching, and evaluating staff including Associate Director, Manager of Admissions Visits, and Admissions Counselors.
• Establish clear roles, territories, schedules, and workloads; maintain regular individual and team meetings; and foster a culture of service, accountability, professional growth, and shared responsibility for results.
• Manage performance and hold staff accountable through individual and team measures for outreach, response time, pipeline movement, conversion, service, and accurate CRM use.
• Conduct regular pipeline and performance reviews, document expectations and feedback, recognize success, address performance concerns promptly, and follow through until standards are met.
• Direct daily recruitment operations including territory management, recruitment travel, college fairs, campus visits and events, application review workflow, and Slate communications.
• Establish service standards, calendars, procedures, and escalation practices that support timely, personal, and accurate engagement.
• Use enrollment data to direct action by monitoring inquiry, application, admission, deposit, and enrollment results; conversion and yield; counselor and territory performance; campaign effectiveness; and market and demographic trends.
• Prepare forecasts and reports, identify emerging problems, and adjust strategy, staffing, and resources as needed.
• Represent the University and model effective recruitment as a visible and credible ambassador with prospective students and families, school counselors, schools, parishes and ministry partners, alumni, and other community partners.
• Shape recruitment marketing and lead generation by partnering with Marketing on audience segmentation, campaign strategy, digital and print content, email and text communications, paid search, lead scoring, and other recruitment tools.
• Ensure messages and timing support the enrollment funnel and faithfully represent Franciscan's mission and student experience.
• Manage the admissions budget and resources by developing and administering the operating budget; allocating staff, travel, event, technology, and vendor resources; monitoring expenditures and recruitment return on investment; and demonstrating prudent stewardship of University resources.
• Coordinate enrollment efforts across the University by partnering with Financial Aid, Academic Affairs, the Registrar, Athletics, Campus Ministry, Student Life, Student Success, and other offices to remove barriers, strengthen yield, and support a smooth transition to enrollment.
• Ensure admissions practices follow University policy, applicable requirements, student privacy expectations, and professional ethical guidance.

Requirements

• Must understand, support, and embrace the mission of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
• Technical Skills:
  • Advanced use of admissions CRM and student information systems, including workflows, data standards, reporting, and staff adoption (Slate strongly preferred).
  • Comprehensive undergraduate recruitment planning, enrollment funnel management, territory management, yield strategy, and forecasting.
  • Data analysis, dashboard reporting, and Microsoft 365 proficiency, particularly Excel; ability to translate enrollment data into decisions and staff action.
  • Working knowledge of digital recruitment and lead generation tools, including email automation, paid search, lead scoring, and campaign measurement.
  • Project, event, budget, resource, and vendor management, including evaluation of recruitment return on investment.
  • Clear presentation and public speaking skills for senior leaders, governing boards, large groups, and individual audiences.
• Non-Technical Skills (Competencies):
  • Managing & Measuring Work: Defines outcomes, milestones, and goals; monitors progress and results; provides regular feedback; and holds staff accountable for meeting expectations.
  • Managerial Courage: Provides direct and timely feedback, addresses difficult issues instead of avoiding them, takes responsible positions even when unpopular, and owns decisions and their consequences.
  • Developing Others: Uses coaching, delegation, and performance management to help staff grow; accurately assesses strengths and development needs; and provides challenging assignments and support.
  • Drive for Results: Maintains focus on intended outcomes, follows through on commitments, uses resources efficiently, and keeps key enrollment indicators visible in daily management.
  • Strategic Thinking: Tracks trends and future implications, identifies threats and opportunities, develops practical strategies and implementation plans, and anticipates obstacles and contingencies.
  • Customer/Service Focus: Responds with urgency and accuracy to students and families, uses feedback to improve the experience, and keeps their needs in view while meeting University standards.
• Education & Experience:
  • Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in higher education, enrollment management, business, marketing, or a related field preferred.
  • Minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional experience in college or university admissions, student recruitment, or enrollment management, including at least three years supervising and developing professional staff.
  • Demonstrated success building and leading high performing admissions counselor teams, translating goals into clear activity and conversion expectations, maintaining a consistent coaching rhythm, and addressing performance concerns directly and appropriately.
  • Demonstrated record of meeting enrollment goals and improving conversion and yield through effective team leadership; experience stabilizing or rebuilding an underperforming team is strongly preferred.
  • Experience developing and implementing recruitment plans for multiple undergraduate populations, markets, territories, communication channels, recruitment events, and application review operations.
  • Experience using CRM, student information systems, and data analysis to manage staff activity, forecast, enrollment, assess performance, and improve processes; Slate experience strongly preferred.
  • Experience managing budgets and vendors, familiarity with financial aid processes and their effect on yield, and experience presenting enrollment strategy and results to senior leadership or a governing board.
  • Ability to articulate and actively support the Catholic and Franciscan mission and values of the University and represent them authentically to prospective students, families, and partners.
• Certifications & Licenses: Valid driver's license required.

Workplace Factors

• Regular local, regional, and national travel, including occasional overnight travel, is required.
• Evening and weekend work is required during recruitment travel, campus visit programs, special events, and peak enrollment periods.
• Work is performed primarily in office, travel, and event settings and includes extended periods of computer, telephone, and face-to-face interaction.
• The fast-paced, deadline-focused environment requires flexibility during seasonal periods of elevated applicant and event activity.