Vice President, Learning Product Development

Office of the Chief Learner Experience & Success Officer

Regular, Exempt, Full-time 

University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) seeks an exceptional, execution-oriented servant leader to serve as Vice President, Learning Product Development (VP LPD). Reporting to the Vice President, Experience Strategy & Design within the Office of the Chief Learner Experience & Success Officer, this role is responsible for envisioning, delivering, and continuously improving the next generation of UMGC's learning products across credit and non-credit offerings at a global scale.

This leader will shape how learning works at UMGC. They will be responsible for reimagining instructional models, assessment practices, learning resources, academic support, and credentialed learning in a learner-centric, AI-powered university - ensuring those innovations translate into scalable, operationally sound learning products that improve learner outcomes. The ability to see experiences through learners' eyes is essential.

The VP LPD owns the learning product experience strategy: defining how learning products function for learners and faculty, and leading teams that design, build, operate, and evolve those products. This leader must work in deep partnership with faculty, industry, instructional designers, and student affairs experts, engaging them as integrated co-creators and domain partners rather than downstream stakeholders. Explicit partnerships will include teams in the Global Academic Learning Enterprise, Experience Design, Learning Resources & Access Services, Global Student Support, Global Workforce Solutions, Transformation Office, and Information Technology.

This role is accountable for moving from vision to production, bridging experimentation and scale, and for transforming validated innovations into sustainable learning models embedded across programs and modalities. The successful candidate will bring an incessant passion for challenging the status quo, changing how the world defines effective learning, and reshaping how learning quality, impact, and efficacy are evaluated in an AI-enabled future.

This is not an academic governance role. It is an outcomes-driven product leadership role that demands relentless collaboration, intellectual curiosity, and a bias toward action.

In addition to owning learning product strategy and execution, this leader must demonstrate the ability to collaborate deeply and credibly with faculty and student affairs experts as true partners valuing their disciplinary expertise, lived learner insight, and frontline experience as essential inputs into learning product design.

This VP will also be an active participant in the broader community of practice, engaging with peer institutions, researchers, practitioners, and industry leaders who are collectively exploring the current and future impacts of artificial intelligence on learning experience efficacy, assessment validity, and learner success.

This role also requires a deep commitment to designing learning experiences that are explicitly grounded in workforce-relevant skills and competencies, informed by the realities of today's and tomorrow's labor market.

Relocation to the Maryland / DC / Northern Virginia metro area is required. This position operates in a hybrid model with three days per week on-site.

Core Responsibilities

Learning Product Experience Strategy & Roadmap

• Define and lead the enterprise learning product experience strategy aligned to UMGC's learner experience vision
• Establish a multi-year learning product roadmap balancing learner needs, faculty experience, workforce relevance, scalability, and cost-to-serve
• Translate the Future Learning Experience (FLEX) vision into modular, skills-aligned, stackable, and personalized learning strategies
• Set experience principles and standards across modalities, programs, and learner segments
• Anchor learning products in explicit workforce skill frameworks reflecting modern work realities

Learning Product Delivery, Lifecycle & Operations

• Own the full lifecycle of learning products from concept through continuous improvement
• Balance the operational excellence required to deliver and sustain UMGC's core learning products with the intentional incubation and testing of innovative learning, assessment, and resource models that can be scaled across programs and modalities
• Lead cross-functional teams responsible for curriculum design, instructional design, learning architecture, and operations
• Implement a product-oriented delivery model to improve speed, quality, and accountability
• Ensure learning products meet quality, accessibility, and readiness standards prior to launch

AI, Assessment, Experimentation & Transformation

• Reimagine assessment models emphasizing authentic, applied, skills-based, and performance-oriented approaches
• Design simulations and assessments that mirror real-world, AI-enabled work environments
• Pilot and scale validated learning innovations
• Engage external AI and learning communities to inform UMGC's product strategy

Product Health & Portfolio Partnership 

• Serve as a core contributor to UMGC's Product Health framework, owning and influencing functional and tactical KPIs related to learning design, delivery, and the learning experience (ex: course quality, learning friction, usability, accessibility, persistence signals) 
• Partner closely with Portfolio Directors, who act as stewards of overall product health, to interpret product health insights and translate them into learning product actions 
• Collaborate within the matrixed Product Team model, contributing learning product expertise while retaining accountability for execution within the Learning Products organization
• Use Product Health dashboards to inform decisions about redesign, investment, experimentation, or sunsetting of learning products

Continuous Improvement, Voice of Student & Data-Informed Decisions 

• Own the continuous improvement loop for learning products, integrating performance data, learner feedback, and operational signals 
• Partner with Institutional Effectiveness, Analytics, and Project Doppler / Voice of Student teams to ensure learner sentiment, behavior, and outcomes inform product decisions in near real time
• Leverage insights from Sherpa and other AI-enabled tools to improve guidance, personalization, and learner support within learning products

Required education & experience: A demonstrated track record of achieving results and getting things done; an earned Master's degree from an accredited institution in education, educational technology, learning sciences, instructional design, or a related field; at least ten years in the large-scale digital learning or learning product development space including at least five (5) years serving in senior leadership; success owning learning products across the full life-cycle as well as the proven ability to partner across academic affairs, student affairs, analytics, and technology organizations.

Preferred education & experience: An earned doctorate in a related field; proven track record of implementing product health or portfolio management frameworks; and success in delivering skills-aligned, flexible, and personalized learning models.

All submissions should include a cover letter and resume.

The University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination. UMGC is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, ancestry, political affiliation or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.

Workplace Accommodations:

The University of Maryland Global Campus Global Campus (UMGC) is committed to creating and maintaining a welcoming and inclusive working environment for people of all abilities. UMGC is dedicated to the principle that no qualified individual with a disability shall, based on disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of the University, or be subjected to discrimination. For information about UMGC's Reasonable Workplace Accommodation Policy or to request an accommodation, applicants/candidates can contact Employee Accommodations via email at employee-accommodations@umgc.edu. 

Benefits Package Highlights:

• Generous Time Off: Enjoy 22 days of paid vacation, 15 days of sick leave, 3 personal days, and 15 paid holidays (16 during general election years). For part-time employees, time off rates will be prorated based on the number of hours worked.
• Comprehensive Health Coverage: Access to health care, medical with vision, dental, and prescription plans for both individuals and families, effective from the 1st of the month following your hire date.
• Insurance Options: Term Life Insurance, Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance, and Long-Term Disability (LTD) Insurance. Part-time employees working less than 0.5 FTE are not eligible for LTD.
• Flexible Spending Accounts: Available for medical and dependent care expenses.
• Retirement Plans: Choose between the Optional Retirement Program (ORP) or the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System (MSRPS).
• Supplemental Retirement Plans: include 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), and various Roth options. The university does not provide matching funds.
• Tuition Remission: Immediate availability for Regular Exempt Staff. Spouses and dependent children are eligible for undergraduate tuition remission after two years of service. NOTE: For part-time employees (at least 50 percent of the time), tuition remission benefits are prorated.

Hiring Range: