Western Governors University
Associate Dean - Cyber Security
🇺🇸
Salt Lake City, UT
🕑
Full-Time
💰
$117K - $210K
💻
Cybersecurity
🗓️
June 26th, 2026
Edtech.com's Summary
Western Governors University is hiring an Associate Dean - Cyber Security. This role involves leading the growth and delivery of competency-based cybersecurity programs, managing faculty and staff to achieve high student retention and successful educational outcomes, and overseeing budgets and partnerships to ensure program profitability and market relevance.
Highlights
- Lead development and scaling of innovative, competency-based cybersecurity programs.
- Manage and mentor instructional faculty, program managers, student coaches, and mentors to drive student success.
- Hold P&L responsibility, manage budgets, and focus on university contribution margins and student growth.
- Implement industry partnerships and go-to-market strategies to attract students and employers.
- Drive continuous improvement using data-driven experimentation and program marketing insights.
- Require expertise in IT, Computer Science, or related fields with at least a master’s degree and 5 years of relevant leadership experience.
- Preferred qualifications include a PhD, higher education experience, online program development, curriculum design, and change management skills.
- Strong capabilities in cross-functional team coordination, communication, data analysis, and decision-making are essential.
- Requires ability to lead in a matrixed, remote environment and act as an agent of change.
- Salary range estimated between $116,600 and $209,900 with benefits including bonuses, health coverage, paid time off, and parental leave; includes occasional travel up to 20%.
Associate Dean - Cyber Security Full Description
If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.
At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
Grade: Management_Executive 609Pay Range: $116,600.00 - $209,900.00
Grade: Management_Executive 609Pay Range: $116,600.00 - $209,900.00
Job Description
Functions as a subject matter expert and a respected academic business leader in driving the education and successful outcomes of students in their field. In collaboration with college and university leadership, other departments, and other university organizations, has end-to-end responsibility of the following: growing your programs with new, market relevant and innovative competency based program offerings, identifying and supporting the implementation of industry partnerships and go-to-market strategies to bring the right students and employers to these programs, and delivering great educational outcomes for these students by directly managing the instructional faculty and leveraging the coaching and mentoring faculty to drive student success. Success will be measured in terms of planning, building, delivering, and scaling the right programs profitably that cater to our underserved student population with a high-level of retention and ROI for the students.
- Provides P&L ownership by managing budget and P&L with a focus on achieving university contribution margins and net new student growth.
- Launches new and revised programs into the education market and operating programs using data, insights and experience in program management and program marketing.
- Drives a culture of continuous experimentation, measurement, and learning from data to rapidly improve the quality and delivery to students
- Provides strong people-leadership to directly or indirectly lead a diverse team of people, including program managers, instructional faculty, student coaches, and mentors.
- Utilizes deep understanding of how students learn and combines with innovative curriculum and student support strategies to drive student success and employability.
- Influences others and communicates effectively to improve and promote teamwork, decision-making, and problem solving.
- Works cooperatively with others across the organization to achieve shared objectives and partners to get the work done.
- Deals constructively with problems that do not have clear solutions or outcomes and can decide to act without the total picture.
- Maintains responsibility for creating workforce and staffing plans and forms teams with the appropriate diverse mix of styles, perspectives, and experiences.
- Learns quickly and extracts lessons learned from failures and mistakes. Expands knowledge base through ongoing curiosity.
- Performs other job-related duties as assigned.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Customer and student obsession with a focus on driving successful outcomes for them
Industry or academic leader in the discipline - Understanding of the industry trends, job opportunities, and educational market trends in the discipline
- Credible voice of the department in external partnerships and presentation opportunities
- Execution focus, with the ability to dive deep and live in the details with a fast-paced weekly execution cadence
- Ability to organize and coordinate activities and results across cross-functional teams
- Ability to coach and develop direct reports
- Ability to collaborate with and manage teams, including those in a remote environment, while demonstrating excellence, integrity, and respect
- Ability to work effectively in a highly matrixed organization
- Ability to build relationships and influence at all levels, both internally and externally
- Ability to be an agent of change in a rapidly changing environment
- Proven ability to analyze data to identify trends and drive innovation
- Sound judgment and decision-making skills
- Strong oral and written communication skills
Job Qualifications:
Minimum Qualifications:
- Master's Degree in field of IT, Computer Science or related field
- 5 years of relevant experience
- 5 years of leadership experience, including hiring, managing, and scaling significant teams
- Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.
Preferred Qualifications:
- PhD in a related field
- Experience in higher education
- Experience in developing online education programs and/or developing and scaling rapidly changing organizations/programs
- Experience in developing curriculum and/or high-stakes assessments
- Demonstrated success in change-management, and bringing order and structure to complex situations
Physical Requirements:
Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
Travel:
This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.
Position & Application Details
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.
How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.
Additional Information
Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.
Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at [email protected].
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.
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