By Rachel Williams, NACAC Communications

Arlington, VA (March 4, 2025) — NACAC is seeking a creative thought leader, strategist, and skilled collaborator with a passion for transforming the college admission process to serve as the inaugural director of its new Center for Innovation in College Admission.

The director role includes an opportunity to shape research, policy, and practice around college admission in the United States and beyond.

The center will lead innovation in college admission at a systems level, with equity as a primary outcome. It aims to redesign outmoded, inequitable structures and processes, develop and respond to research insights, cultivate new and emerging practices in admission, and design workforce development solutions for the admission counseling profession.

“We are ready to put in the work to innovate in the field’s most pressing areas of need,” said David Hawkins, NACAC chief education and policy officer, who the inaugural director will report to. “We are eager to leverage this moment of challenge into an opportunity to transform college admission policies and practices so they serve all students equitably.”

The center was first announced in Baltimore, Maryland during NACAC CEO Angel B. Pérez’s State of the Association address at NACAC Conference 2023. Thanks to support from Lumina Foundation, NACAC worked with Education First, a national, mission-driven strategy and policy organization with deep expertise in education improvement, to create a blueprint for the center and determine its name. When first announced, NACAC referred to the center as the Center for Reimagining College Access.

The blueprint for the center includes four primary focus areas, which the director will be responsible for leading. They include re-examining the recruitment and college application processes; examining and questioning the requirements for admission, including selective admission practices; investing in the profession by helping shape the standards and best practices for the field; and redesigning systems in which colleges and students connect with each other.

NACAC is working with executive-search firm, WittKieffer, in the hiring of this position. The selected candidate will work at NACAC’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

See the full job description for additional information about the center, the position, and how to apply.