The University of Maryland Global Campus is widely recognized as a pioneer in the online education community. For that reason, I was excited to learn about the UMGC search for a vice president in learner experience design. To learn more about this role, I asked Angie Besendorfer, chief learner experience and success officer, to answer our four standard Featured Gig questions.
Q: What is the university’s mandate behind this role? How does it help align with and advance the university’s strategic priorities?
A: UMGC is building a new department as part of the Learner Experience and Success division. As part of the reorganization, UMGC created the vice president, learner experience design, to lead the new department that is responsible learning product development, learning resources, learning supports, the digital student experience and piloting for future innovations. This reorganization is a strategic action in a moment of real alignment and momentum across the institution. The university is making clear, sustained commitments to learner-centered design, skills-forward education and the responsible integration of AI into teaching and learning. At the same time, UMGC is also investing in the people, frameworks and early innovations needed to support those commitments. This role champions strategic design of the learner experience.
The mandate for the role is to lead the creation of next-generation learning at UMGC, with a deliberate focus on how AI can transform the learner and faculty experience. This role helps ensure that learner-facing experiences and academic products are coherent, purposeful and aligned to learner needs, workforce expectations and the university’s strategic plan. This VP will play a defining role in shaping the next generation of online and global public higher education. The VP will lead the creation for learning design as a globally scaled, learner-centric, data-driven, skills-based and AI-powered organization. They are also responsible for deliberately moving the institution beyond legacy instructional design and workflows that no longer serve modern learners, ensuring that our degrees, credentials and learning experiences are coherent, credible, relevant and outcomes-driven across a global, adult-serving learner population.
This is accomplished through a matrix organization where responsibility and success are shared. The learner experience design department brings together academic leadership, experience strategy, learning product development and technology delivery in service of learner success. Within this model, the VP works in close partnership with the CAO, deans, portfolio vice presidents and portfolio directors to translate academic intent and portfolio priorities into cohesive learner experiences. Additionally, the VP partners with the Global Workforce Solutions team to bring noncredit learning opportunities to the market with alignment to degree programs in order to create stackable learning experiences. This model allows UMGC to pair the credibility of a mature academic institution with the agility, speed and continuous improvement of a modern, student-centered, product-led organization.
Q: Where does the role sit within the university structure? How will the person in this role engage with other units and leaders across campus?
A: The vice president, learner experience design, sits within the newly created Learner Experience and Success division and reports to the chief learner experience and success officer. This placement reflects UMGC’s belief that learning design is a complex strategic activity for learner success. This new department replaces and expands upon what was formerly known as Integrative Learning Design which was part of the Global Academic Learning Enterprise (also known as Academic Affairs). Creating learner design as a specific department with peers including the chief academic officer, VP of learner lifecycle success, VP of engagement and VP of global workforce solutions establishes a leadership team across the division that collaborates around the transformation of higher education. This type of dynamic team is critical especially at a time when higher education is being asked to evolve more rapidly than ever before.
The role is intentionally designed to operate across a matrix organization beyond the Learner Experience and Success Division. This is a role for a leader who is comfortable working closely with our Office of IT, because of the dependencies on IT to partner in ensuring the technology platforms can support the innovative learner experiences UMGC will create. Additionally, it will be important to collaborate with other departments as we reimagine flexible learning opportunities designed to meet the needs of a variety of learners including active-duty military, veterans and working adults across the globe.
Q: What would success look like in one year? Three years? Beyond?
A: Early success for this role will be about creating clarity among department members and collaborators from other departments regarding responsibilities, accountabilities, where consultations occur and processes for informing others. The RACI within the learner experience design department and across the university will create the structure to work with agility and momentum. Creating a road map starting with the current reality, identifying key milestones that the department will achieve and communicating about progress will establish a belief that this new organizational structure is designed correctly. By the end of the first year in the role, the VP should have a clear strategy for ensuring all learning experiences embrace the next-generation learner design while also articulating pilots that are being explored for future innovation. In order to successfully accomplish these things, the VP must build strong, trust-based partnerships across other departments and depth of understanding of the technology and learning ecosystem at UMGC.
Success in three years will have many indicators. This includes data-based evidence of the transformation in learning grounded in student success metrics and results of surveys related to learner experience. AI enablement for students and faculty is an embedded part of the learning design, creating improved student success and faculty efficiencies that free them up to spend their time interacting with learners. By three years, an established process is clearly defined, resulting in predictable timelines for course development and new program launches that allow for speed to product improvement.
An important transformation will have occurred in how the university engages learning resources, including ensuring accessibility while creating fiscal responsibility for the university and learners. The digital platforms utilized by learners will have transformed, reducing friction and increasing intuitive operations. Furthermore, the UMGC learner experience will feel connected, seamless and distinctive across the learner journey.
Finally, strong processes are in place for piloting new innovations and determining if and when to scale the innovation across the learning environment. The new learner experience design department will be characterized by trust and institutional confidence in the learning design and products as well as for leading change across the learner experience.
Q: What kinds of future roles would someone who took this position be prepared for?
A: This role prepares leaders for senior executive positions at the intersection of learner design transformation and the evolution of higher education. Experience acquired through this role will provide depth in understanding learner experience, a product design mindset, the ability to integrate AI to support learner and faculty roles in higher education, and in leading institutionwide efforts.
Future roles might include roles such as chief learning officer or chief learner experience officer, senior academic innovation or digital learning leadership roles, and executive leadership positions focused on learning transformation within higher education. Additionally, this role will prepare the leader as an example of real transformation in higher education with a voice that will shape the future of higher education. This experience will allow the leader to speak about how UMGC created a dream of a next-generation learner experience and then collaborated to create the technology platform, learning design and faculty engagement to bring it to life.
