Position Title: Student Success Coach
Location: Appleton
Department: Center for Academic Success
Position Type: Staff
Job Summary
The Student Success Coach is a full-time professional staff member in the Center for Academic Success (CAS) and an integral member of Lawrence’s integrated student success hub. The Student Success Coach plays a central role in advancing Lawrence’s commitment to holistic student success by partnering with students to navigate the interconnected dimensions of academic achievement, personal growth, major and career exploration, career readiness, and purposeful decision-making throughout their Lawrence experience.
The Student Success Coach provides individualized coaching, course instruction, workshop facilitation, outreach, and case management designed to help students succeed in their academic experience while developing the skills, habits, relationships, professional competencies, and sense of purpose necessary to thrive at Lawrence and beyond. Grounded in academic coaching principles, learning science, and a working knowledge of the Life Design framework, the Student Success Coach partners with students to intentionally design and navigate their college experience. Through coaching conversations and developmental interventions, the coach helps students build self-awareness, strengthen learning strategies, engage meaningfully with faculty and campus resources, explore possibilities, connect their academic experiences to personal values and future aspirations, and design and pursue intentional actions that lead to growth, achievement, and future success. Working in partnership with the Career Center and other campus partners, the Student Success Coach helps students connect their liberal arts education to meaningful careers and lives of purpose.
The work of the Student Success Coach reflects Lawrence University’s commitment to supporting the whole student by recognizing that academic achievement, personal development, well-being, career readiness, belonging, and future direction are deeply interconnected.
Essential Job Responsibilities:
Student Coaching
- Provide individualized student success coaching that empowers students to
- identify their strengths, values, interests, and aspirations;
- clarify goals and priorities;
- make intentional decisions and take meaningful action;
- develop effective learning strategies;
- strengthen motivation, confidence, and accountability; and
- build resilience and self-awareness; and
- connect their academic experiences to meaningful engagement opportunities and future pathways.
- Partner with students to intentionally navigate their Lawrence experience by integrating academic success, personal growth, well-being, career readiness, and post-graduate planning into a cohesive educational journey.
- Guide students in exploring multiple academic, career, and life pathways through a developmental coaching approach emphasizing curiosity, experimentation, reflection, and iterative decision-making.
- Support students in developing effective college success behaviors, including faculty engagement, strategic help-seeking, time management, self-advocacy, reflective practice, and effective use of campus resources.
- Provide proactive outreach, coaching, and developmental support for students experiencing academic difficulty, navigating transitions, or encountering barriers to persistence and success.
- Coach students through the exploration of career pathways, graduate/professional education, and post-graduate opportunities using guided reflection, life design activities, informational interview planning, and intentional referrals to Career Center programs, alumni, employers, and experiential learning opportunities.
- Help students intentionally connect their liberal arts education to meaningful careers and lives by encouraging engagement in internships, undergraduate research, community-based learning, leadership, employment, global experiences, and other high-impact educational practices.
Teaching and Facilitation
Teach student success courses, such as:
- UNIC 153: Designing Your Life After Lawrence, a 3-unit course that applies design thinking principles to help students connect their Lawrence education with meaningful lives, careers, and multiple possible futures. Students engage in career exploration activities such as career narrative-building, informational interviewing, and prototyping possible career paths.
- UNIC 117: Academic Well-Being, a 3-unit course designed to introduce students to evidence-based well-being, learning, and academic success theories.
- Design and facilitate workshops and group learning experiences that integrate academic success strategies, career readiness, life design, and student development.
Collaboration and Student Success Initiatives
- Collaborate with faculty, academic advisors, Career Center staff, and other campus partners to provide coordinated student support and ensure students experience seamless connections to campus resources and opportunities.
- Co-facilitate workshops and events focused on academic exploration, career development, alumni engagement, and experiential learning to help students build clarity, connections, and purposeful plans for their future.
- Serve as a connector within Lawrence’s student success ecosystem by helping students access academic support, career development resources, experiential learning, faculty mentorship, alumni networks, and other high-impact opportunities.
- Contribute to university-wide student success initiatives supporting new student transition and engagement, including Lawrence Launch, LUX events, EPIC experiences, Welcome Week, and other collaborative programs.
Build strong partnerships with campus stakeholders to strengthen referral processes, reduce barriers to support, and create an integrated student success experience.
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Student Success Systems and Assessment
- Utilize the University’s Student Success Management System, Navigate360, to schedule appointments, document coaching interactions, coordinate interventions, manage caseloads, coordinate interventions, monitor student progress, and communicate with campus partners.
- Use coaching data, student outcomes, and assessment results to evaluate coaching effectiveness, identify emerging student needs, and contribute to the continuous improvement of student success initiatives.
- Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement by piloting new coaching approaches, programs, and initiatives that advance Lawrence University’s evolving vision for holistic student success.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Demonstrated coaching, facilitation, and interpersonal communication skills, with the ability to build trusting, developmental relationships that promote student learning, growth, and self-authorship.
- Knowledge of evidence-based learning strategies, metacognition, and academic success practices.
- Working knowledge of the Stanford Life Design framework, key themes from Hacking College, and related developmental coaching approaches (e.g., appreciative advising), or a demonstrated commitment to learning and applying these approaches to support students’ academic, personal, and career development.
- Ability to facilitate reflective, strengths-based, and action-oriented coaching conversations that help students connect their academic experiences, work, co-curricular and extracurricular involvement, personal values, and future aspirations.
- Commitment to meeting students where they are by listening actively, demonstrating empathy, and centering the student experience.
- Familiarity with career readiness frameworks (e.g., NACE Career Readiness Competencies) and the ability to help students connect their interests, strengths, experiences, and transferable skills to meaningful career pathways and post-graduate opportunities.
- Experience and demonstrated commitment to culturally responsive practice and working effectively with diverse student populations, including but not limited to first-generation students, international students, students with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ students, AAPI and BIPOC students, and students from a variety of cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with faculty, academic advisors, and campus partners to provide coordinated, student-centered support, facilitate referrals, and advance student success.
- Demonstrated professionalism, sound judgment, and the ability to maintain confidentiality.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities, exercise initiative, and adapt effectively within a collaborative, evolving, and innovative student success environment.
- Familiarity with, or the ability to quickly learn, student success technologies including Navigate360, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Banner, Canvas, and related platforms used to coordinate student support and assess outcomes.
- Appreciation for the value of a liberal arts education and Lawrence University’s commitment to intellectual curiosity, creativity, exploration, and holistic student development.
Education and Work Experience
Required Qualifications
- Completed Master’s degree in Higher Education, Counseling, Student Affairs, Educational Psychology, Social Work, College Student Personnel, or a similar field.
- Demonstrated experience coaching, advising, teaching, counseling, mentoring, or otherwise supporting college students in achieving academic, personal, or professional goals.
Preferred Qualifications
- Three to five years of experience in higher education, preferably in academic coaching, advising, student success, counseling, or related direct student support roles.
- Certification in Academic Coaching, Life Design Coaching, or a related coaching program.
- Experience applying life design, design thinking, career development, student development, or strengths-based development frameworks with college students.
- University-level teaching experience.
- Significant experience working one-on-one with college students in a developmental or coaching capacity.
- Demonstrated commitment to equity, inclusion, and belonging.
- Experience with Navigate360 student success software.
- Experience with career coaching, career services, or career readiness programming.
Application Materials
Please submit:
- Cover Letter
- Resume
- A statement describing your philosophy of student success, advising, and coaching.
We’re particularly interested in how you support students in identifying goals, leveraging their strengths, building meaningful connections, and designing purposeful academic and personal pathways.
