President

POSITION PROFILE ANNOUNCEMENT PRESIDENT, Livingstone College Reports To: Board of Trustees Status: Full Time/Exempt Location: Salisbury, North Carolina 28144 THE INSTITUTION: Livingstone College, founded in 1879, is a private higher educational institution chartered by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. A historically black college, Livingstone College is secured by a strong commitment to quality instruction, academic excellence, and student success.

Through a Christian-based environment suitable for holistic learning, Livingstone College provides excellent business, liberal arts, STEAM, teacher education and workforce development programs for students from all ethnic and gender backgrounds. Designed to promote lifelong learning and to develop the potential for leadership and service to a global community, students from over 20 states and several foreign countries will leave the institution with the academic preparation to compete in the global economy, and where they will have immediate positive impact on our society.

Livingstone College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award certificate, associate, and baccalaureate degrees. Comprising four Divisions, namely the Division of Business: Division of Education, Psychology; and Social Work; Division of Liberal Arts and Humanities; and Division of Mathematics and Sciences, the College offers the Associate of Science in Culinary Arts, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Social Work degrees in about 22 major fields. Members of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Conference, the Blue Bears, consist of 12 CIAA Division 2 varsity sports.

Located in Salisbury, North Carolina near Charlotte the beautiful historic campus boasts a new Science Center and Sports Stadium. The College enjoys a strong legacy, and its future is bright due to:

• Accomplished leadership, committed faculty, sound financials, engaged Board of Trustees, alumni, and community partners and stakeholders - grounded in responsive instruction and character building - and a culture of listening to students and their families based on their expressed needs and exploring together what works.
• 143-year history of providing and maintaining quality liberal arts education in a secure environment.
• To learn more about Livingstone College, visit their website: www.livingstone.edu.

THE OPPORTUNITY: Livingstone College is seeking a collaborative and strategic executive leader to build on the College’s legacy and push the College forward during an evolutionary time in higher education. Reporting to and partnering closely with a committed Board, the President will bring emotional intelligence and energy to manage and further the College’s vision, strategy, and program development. The President will have overall responsibility for the educational, operational, and financial affairs of the College and serve as Chief Executive Officer reporting to the Board of Trustees. This visionary, ethical leader will inspire and empower staff, partners, and stakeholders, respecting the past and present while generating exciting ideas for greater impact in the future. The President will also bring strong commitment to the excellence, justice, and equity framework that the Board of Trustees seeks to embed throughout all aspects of the College’s internal and external work, including the alignment of administrative, academic, and financial departments and investments.

THE POSITION: Partnering closely with the Board and staff, the President will have overall day-to-day accountability for the effective and efficient management of the College, its resources, and its affairs. The new leader will bring knowledge, commitment, and curiosity to their role in continuing to advance a holistic institutional education approach while managing the following core responsibilities.

Vision & Mission Stewardship

• Provide the creative strategic vision, inspirational motivation and day to day effective direction and efficient operation necessary to ensure the College’s success and continued advancement of its values, mission, and purpose. The President shall be responsible for the preparation of the Annual Budget of the College with the goal of demonstrated sound fiscal management. • Collaborate with the Board, faculty, staff, alumni, and community stakeholders to ensure that the College’s values, mission, and purpose are fully embodied in all aspects of the College’s instruction and works. The President will work closely with the Vice President of Academic Affairs on the appointment of the faculty. He/she will have full authority over academic divisions, departments, staff and all employees, salaries and is accountable for the quality of their performance.

• Working closely with the Board, faculty, and other stakeholder partners, identify and effectively communicate a compelling, shared vision for the Board, faculty, staff, and pertinent external groups, ensuring that the goals of the College’s programs are accurately understood and implemented.
• Challenge and engage with the College, Board, fundraising development, and investment advisors to fully explore how mission- alignments can result in both careful stewardship of the operations and endowment while intentionally focusing on that which furthers the College’s goals.

Organizational Leadership

• Asset Management: Ensure academic management and financial administration strategies and systems are effective, aligned with the College’s mission/values, and implemented with excellence. Manage annual income, understanding the interplay of this income with endowment assets. Steward academic and finances with an ethical lens that promotes legal compliance and financial integrity. Maximize use of all the College’s facilities and properties—its offices, meeting spaces, hospitality and incubator space and all other real estate—to enhance the College’s overall mission.
• Programmatic Oversight: Ensure the development of academic programming, grantmaking, and investment strategies and systems are effective, aligned with the mission/values of the College and AME Zion Church, and implemented with excellence.
• Innovation and Impact: Ensure standards and systems are in place that track the College’s effectiveness and impact, centered in equitable evaluation principles; including rigor around programmatic innovation and outcomes; and with increased program integration with the endowment for a greater impact platform.
• Organizational Development: Assess organizational needs and support creative solutions to enhance structures, practices, systems, tools, reports, and staffing ensuring role clarity and alignment and the identification of necessary resources to thrive.
• Staff Management: Recruit, lead, mentor, and coach a diverse faculty and staff ensuring they are supported, entrusted, empowered, recognized, appreciated, and amplified. Foster a community of meaningful collaboration, intellectual curiosity, continuous learning, transparency, and open feedback. The President will be evaluated annually.
• Equity: Clarify annual and multi-year goals and success measures and hold staff and Board accountable for achieving them. Cultivate the language and framing of excellence and its essential role in the College’s theory of change and mission committing the necessary resources for continual learning, development, growth, sustainability, and expansion.
• Culture: Model and build upon an equity-focused environment centered on Livingstone’s guiding principles of “lifting up, student bridge learning” that embraces diversity, transparency, and authentic inclusion in all areas of its work. Actively support a culture of integrity, professionalism, commitment, and humility. Demonstrate and champion these values in all actions and decisions, and ensure the adoption of, and adherence to, proper values and ethical standards in all the College’s business.

Board Engagement

Work with the Board to help ensure proper resources and information for effective governance; support Board members as they individually and collectively fulfill their governance and fiduciary responsibilities; and ensure transparency and regular communication with the Board in all key areas.

• Serve as a liaison and foster effective relationships within the Board, between the Board and College’s faculty, staff, and with external audiences.

• Engage in contemplative discourse with the Board around emerging trends and exploration of investments in existing and new initiatives cultivating an open, thoughtful, and collaborative partnerships. External Affairs • Serve as the key representative of the College to external constituencies such as community, philanthropic institutions and organizations, government entities and elected officials.

• Leverage existing local, regional, national, and international connections and build new relationships that may increase philanthropic investments in the College’s priority areas.
• Empower program faculty to cultivate relationships with relevant community organizations and leaders in government, business, and other nonprofits, contributing to thought leadership around higher education excellence.
• Work collaboratively with other private and/or public institutions, organizations, funding sources, and community partners as a thought leader lifting the voices of the College’s community partners and influencing measurable change.

Qualifications:

The President must be a proven senior executive with a documented record of successful administrative management, and with deep commitment to academic superiority, quality liberal arts, science, and technical higher education. He/she will be an empathetic people leader with values alignment for under-resourced and historically marginalized communities. The individual will also have experience in and/or passion for grounding institutional culture and serving as a fierce internal and external champion of Livingstone College. Driven by intellectual curiosity and with a steady presence, the individual will bring outcomes-oriented leadership to the advancement of the College’s objectives and goals. Key qualifications for the role follow but we recognize that a compelling candidate might meet some, not all, requirements and invite interested candidates to explain what makes them uniquely well-suited for this leadership role in their cover letters:

• A proven, results-oriented senior executive with 10 or more years in leadership roles in relevant sectors such as higher education, business, philanthropy, nonprofit, and/or government.
• Strong people leadership and management skills with a proven background of empowering diverse groups of professionals, entrusting and amplifying the work of others including experience with board governance and engagement.
• Outstanding communications skills and diplomacy, including the ability to listen to, relate well to, and inspire a wide range of constituencies and people at all levels.
• A history of successful engagement, partnering, and fostering alliance-building among a broad range of constituencies and an ability to work with and effectively inspire innovative thinking among stakeholders and audiences in multiple sectors.
• Experience managing organizational complexity and enhancing the College’s capacity and impact.
• Knowledge and zeal for one or more focused disciplines in which the College educates, trains, instructs as well mindful of democratic values, economically disadvantaged communities, wealth disparities and sustainable climate change.
• Understanding of power dynamics around the changes in academic institutional structures and philanthropy post Covid 19 pandemic and is a fierce champion of community and government engagement in the essential role of higher education in movement building to affect sustainable, progressive change.
• A PhD degree or comparable academic degree from an accredited university, and/or comparable experience and background. Work Environment: The President will work at the College and be willing to relocate to the Salisbury metropolitan area.

Compensation & Benefits:

A competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits package will be offered. Compensation will be equitable and commensurate with experience within a salary range of $275,000 to $300,000/year plus benefits.

THE APPLICATION:

Livingstone College Governance Search Committee has partnered with The Burgess Group – an international strategic management consulting firm that has centered on senior level Page 6 executive search in its work of meeting the unique needs of major nonprofits, corporations, and government agencies since 1994. – on this search.

To Apply, email to: BillBurgess@TheBurgessGroup.com a cover letter and updated resume pertinent to this Position Profile, and three Letters of References: 1 from a supervisor, 1 from a peer and 1 from a subordinate (Candidates will be notified in advance of any outreach to references) and a Writing Sample that exemplifies the Profile requirements as soon as possible. One combined PDF is preferred. Use the subject line: President, Livingstone College. Any questions call: 212.406.2400 and/or by email. Application deadline is June 17, 2022.

Livingstone College is an equal opportunity employer. The Burgess Group is actively seeking a range of traditional and nontraditional backgrounds, and perspectives of highly skilled leader applicants knowledgeable of historically black colleges and universities.