Registrar and Director of Academic Records

About the role

Meritus College is a new not-for-profit online college built for working adults and career‑changers. The Registrar & Director of Academic Records is a founding role responsible for designing and operating every registrar function—from SIS and academic catalog to degree audit, conferral, transfer credit, FERPA, and accreditation reporting—while supporting the first cohort, building scalable infrastructure, and producing evidence for accreditation.

The role combines full functional ownership, design authority for policies and data structures, challenging technical work translating a competency‑based model into federally reportable records, and lasting impact as the architecture built will govern the institution for decades.

Responsibilities

• Build and Lead the Office of the Registrar – draft institutional policy stack (registration, enrollment, grading, academic standing, SAP, engagement/attendance, leave/withdrawal, transfer credit/prior learning, degree conferral, records retention, transcript issuance).
• Establish the Academic Catalog as the institutional document of record – own content architecture, approval workflow, version control, publication cycle, archive; ensure catalog, enrollment agreement, and SIS stay aligned.
• Stand up registrar service infrastructure – intake/case management, service‑level standards, escalation paths, self‑service documentation for scaling.
• Define the system of academic authority – who may change grades, waive/substitute requirements, release records, reverse withdrawals, and required documentation/audit trail.
• Support Implementation of SIS – lead requirements definition, configuration, academic structure setup, lifecycle governance with IT Lead; own institutional data of record.
• Establish institutional data dictionary – define enrollment, active status, unit of academic progress, completion, good standing; build validation rules, reconciliation cycles, exception reporting, census‑date freezes, period‑close discipline; certify accuracy of official data.
• Establish records custody, retention, and continuity – set retention/destruction schedules, disaster recovery, permanent record custody and teach‑out plan.
• Registration, Academic Progress, and Conferral – own academic calendar (registration, add/drop, census, withdrawal, grading, conferral dates) aligned with financial aid, coaching, instruction, marketing, enrollment.
• Support enrollment lifecycle end‑to‑end – registration, add/drop, withdrawal, leave of absence, reinstatement, track/program change, enrollment verification, learner‑facing communication.
• Build and own the degree audit – encode program requirements, run progression checks, resolve exceptions/substitutions with documented rationale, certify candidates for conferral.
• Design credential issuance end‑to‑end – diploma production, digital credentials, transcript design/legend, secure delivery, third‑party degree verification.
• Support transfer credit and prior learning – set evaluation criteria, faculty consultation protocols, articulation from Merit America programs and