Director of Health Professions Advising

The Director of Health Professions Advising is responsible for the overall leadership and management of the advising services and professional development support for undergraduate students and alumni who are pursuing admittance to medical, dental, physician assistant, PT, OT, and other health-related professional graduate schools. The Director of Health Professions Advising (HPA) leads and manages all advising and professional development services for undergraduate students and alumni seeking admission to health professional graduate schools (e.g., medical, dental, PA, PT, OT).

Reporting to the Office for Professional Development (in the Ellis Center in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences), the Director is responsible for strategic planning, budget management, staff supervision, program development, and assessment. This role requires establishing crucial internal and external partnerships to advocate for student success, supporting diversity initiatives, and delivering effective pre-professional advising, workshops, educational programs, and partnerships with external professional schools that align with the University’s mission.

Villanova is a Catholic university sponsored by the Augustinian Order. The University is an equal opportunity employer and seeks candidates who understand, respect and can contribute to the University’s mission and values.

Duties and Responsibilities:              

The Director provides comprehensive guidance and support to undergraduate students and alumni applying to medical, dental, and other health related schools.

Health Professions Student Application Support Services

Responsible for guiding eligible applicants to medical and dental school. Approximately 120 undergraduate students and alumni annually participate in the Health Professions Letter Packet Process.

Advises and coaches applicants through every step of the application process to help them assess their applicant readiness, including reviewing their transcript(s), applicant questionnaire, work/activities, personal statement, exam scores, and potential schools of interest.

(With assistance from other members of the Professional Development team) compiles all the letters of recommendation collected for a student and adds a cover letter from the HPA office articulating the academic rigor of a Villanova education. The Director submits these letter packets to their designated application portal(s).

Tracks the interview and acceptance data for every student throughout the application cycle and shares that data with college leadership and campus partners.

Advising Pre-Health Advising and Support

Direct Advising: Provide pre-professional advising to junior and senior undergraduates, alumni, and students in the Pre-Health Certificate Program (College of Professional Studies).

Support for Underrepresented Students: Actively seeks out and implements strategies to support pre-health students from underrepresented groups.

Advising Resource Management: Annually update all official advising materials (print and online guides) and ensure distribution to all academic advisors across the university.

Serve as the official advisor of record for key pre-health student organizations, including the Pre-Medical Club, Pre-Dental Student Association, Pre-Vet Club, Pre-PA Club, Global Medical Brigades, and Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED) Pre-Health Honor Society.

Oversee, manage, and produce the spring induction ceremony for AED. Work directly with student organization executive boards to plan programming and speaker events.

Internal and External Relations and Outreach

Manage comprehensive student programming, including application readiness workshops, interview training, and applicant Q&A sessions.

Coordinate the biennial Health Professions School Expo, successfully engaging 75 academic programs and over 350 regional student registrants.

Represent the program at recruitment events, delivering presentations to prospective and admitted students and families.

Maintain crucial internal liaison relationships (e.g., academic departments, Career Center) and external relationships with health professions schools to secure affiliation agreements and advocate for applicants.

Direct external communications, including a weekly student newsfeed, social media posts, and networking events featuring professional representatives.

Facilitate alumni networking and engagement in partnership with the Career Center and Alumni Affairs.

Participate in professional development via active membership in NAAHP, NEAAHP, and the Philadelphia LAN.

Program Operations

Develop the strategic vision for the pre-health enterprise, organizes the calendar of events for each semester, runs bi-weekly staff meetings to provide direction and oversight to the staff and students collegially to implement day-to-day program operations, successfully plan and manage a myriad of events, and coordinate information delivery with university offices.

Work closely with Ellis Center systems management team to ensure efficient utilization of university systems that support the program including: SLATE, Blackboard, Handshake, Banner, and other systems, as needed.

Provide budget projections including managing events, providing financial resources for health professions advisors for ongoing professional development, organizational memberships, travel, subscriptions, and educational materials to maintain and enhance competence.

Work collaboratively with Ellis Center Offices and the Career Center to provide a system that identifies and tracks health professions students, which is accessible to health professions advisor(s), and that makes it possible to compile data and analyze trends in the health professions student population.

Provide an annual report to the Dean’s Office and Career Center.

Supervision and Management of Staff

Oversees and supervise the Assistant Director and student workers. An additional assistant director level position for the team has been requested for the future.

Minimum Qualifications:      

Master’s degree required.

Six to eight years of academic advising experience.

Three years of health professions advising experience, with more experience desired.

Specific Job Knowledge:

Knowledge/experience working with health professional program application systems (i.e. AMCAS, AADSAS, AACOMAS, CASPA, etc.) is required.

Experience presenting to college-level audiences is required.

Ability to communicate effectively and accurately with administrators, faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, community partners, and other stakeholders.

Ability to analyze data.

Ability to use independent judgment and show attention to detail.

Strong commitment to quality in a service and student-centered environment.

Experience in leadership position; ability to supervise, facilitate, and motivate diverse groups of employees/students/coworkers.

Preferred Qualifications:      

Teaching college-level professional development or advising courses is strongly preferred.