Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing
Bennington College
Bennington, VT - United States
Bennington College, an innovative and distinguished liberal arts college in a beautiful area of Vermont, seeks a strategic, results-driven, and creative leader to serve as its first Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing.
Through a genuinely distinctive education, Bennington cultivates a mindset for creativity, a capacity to break new ground, and the conditions for intellectual and personal growth. Since its founding in 1932, Bennington has been a laboratory for new ideas and a home to countless artists, entrepreneurs, and thinkers who have shaped contemporary culture. Bennington was the first to include the visual and performing arts in a liberal arts education, and it is the only college to require that its students spend a term—every year—at work in the world. Bennington’s nearly 875 students (782 undergraduate and 91 graduate) work intensively with faculty and staff to forge individualized and hands-on educational paths around their driving questions and interests and devote themselves to several community outreach efforts, often tied to the endeavors they are pursuing in their coursework.
Bennington serves a diverse student population inclusive of members of ethnically/racially minoritized, international, LGBTQIA+, and disability communities as well as diverse gender identities, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, and political beliefs. 21% of undergraduate students identify as people of color and 13% are international students representing 46 countries. Staff and faculty also reflect diverse and intersecting backgrounds and identities.
The Vice President of Enrollment Management and Marketing reports to the President and serves as a member of the President’s Cabinet. As Bennington moves forward with its four building blocks of a new strategic plan – energize the core, innovation and partnerships, the whole person, and storytelling – the Vice President will be expected to develop an innovative and forward-thinking strategy to achieve enrollment goals; integrate marketing into the enrollment division and leverage performance marketing to drive enrollment growth; foster collaborative partnerships to support campus-wide engagement in enrollment and marketing efforts; and cultivate and support a dedicated staff of approximately 26 staff members from the following functional units: Admissions, Financial Aid, and Communications and Marketing.
This newly created position will be responsible for attracting and engaging prospective and current Bennington students, families, and community members through compelling brand storytelling, a data-driven marketing approach, and innovative recruitment approaches. The candidate will possess a track record of success in leading marketing, admissions, and financial aid programs in a tuition-dependent environment, including significant professional experience and expertise covering the full enrollment funnel: from marketing techniques designed to improve awareness and engagement of prospective students to recruitment, yield, and financial aid strategies and tactics to convert prospective students to enrolled students. It will be important for the Vice President to resonate deeply with the mission, character, and approach embodied in a Bennington education and be willing to play a visible and vital role as a member of the College’s senior leadership team, to lead campus-wide initiatives, and to drive innovation. The ability to form deep relationships and develop meaningful ways to engage a variety of constituents, political savvy, and aptitude to skillfully navigate a complex and highly participatory academic community will be essential for success.
All applications, nominations, and inquiries are invited. Applications should include, as separate documents, a CV or resume and a letter of interest addressing the themes in the leadership profile.
WittKieffer is assisting Bennington College in this search. Review of candidates’ materials will begin the week of July 1, 2024, and continue until an appointment has been made.
Nominations, inquiries, and applications can be directed to:
Shelley Arakawa, J.D., and Ashlee Winters Musser
Bennington-VPEnrollmentandMarketing@wittkieffer.com
Bennington College is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination as defined under applicable state and federal laws, including but not limited to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. The College does not discriminate in its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, age, sex, religion, disability, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV test, or any other legally protected status.