Wartburg College is searching for a Dean of Spiritual Life.  Reporting to the President, the Dean provides administrative leadership for Wartburg College Spiritual Life and Campus Ministry (SLCM), responsible for planning and leading campus worship, as well as for overseeing numerous student life groups (e.g. Catholic Knights, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Hope Overflow worship team, Muslim Student Association).

Characterized by an uncommon commitment to its mission, Wartburg College is dedicated to challenging and nurturing students for lives of leadership and service as a spirited expression of their faith and learning.

The Dean will champion the faith pillar of the Wartburg College mission and will provide leadership for collaborative ministry and programming that reaches out to a spiritually diverse community. SLCM is a Reconciling in Christ community.

The Dean will seek to engage students, faculty, and staff in actively caring for their spiritual selves in a busy world. The Dean will provide leadership for preaching, regular worship, and other Christian and interfaith initiatives and support the college’s work of preparing students to live in a religiously diverse and challenging world. The function of this position requires a specific sense of calling to work with emerging adults and the staff and faculty who seek to serve students.

Internationally recognized for the quality of its community engagement, Wartburg helps students discover and claim their callings – connecting their learning with faith and values, their understanding of themselves and their gifts, their perspective on life and the future, and the opportunities for participating in church, community, and the larger society in purposeful and meaningful ways. Primarily focused on residential undergraduate education, the college offers degree programs in the arts and sciences and in the professions to help students discern and claim their callings.

To advance the college’s mission, the Board of Regents has adopted a strategic plan, Our Brightest Days: Realizing Purpose, Leading Change, which articulates an ambitious vision: Wartburg College is called to be the leading institution in educating the whole person. Together, the college creates an inclusive community combining diverse curricular and co-curricular experiences to prepare students to be resilient leaders of positive change through service in a complex world.

Joining the college at an exciting time of great promise, the Dean will work with new president, Dr. Rebecca Neiduski, as she works to implement the strategic plan.  Together with the President and other colleagues, the Dean will champion efforts to increase diversity, achieve equity, and enhance inclusion, while working to ensure that all students realize the opportunities and benefits of the college’s many experiential opportunities.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

• Serve in a pastoral role for the campus community
• Empower and equip students, faculty, and staff to work together to develop and lead ministries on campus
• Lead worship services and preach
• Provide pastoral counseling

• Interpret and voice the theological foundations of Wartburg College’s mission
  • Champion Wartburg’s identity as a college of the church in past, current, and future contexts.  In particular, with regards to:

• The Heritage: Martin Luther, Wilhelm Löhe legacy of service to a changing world, College of the ELCA
• The Mission Pillars: Leadership, Service, Faith, Learning
• The call to challenge and nurture students’ vocational discernment
• Serve as administrative lead for Spiritual Life and Campus Ministry
• Utilize the Moehlmann Chaplaincy Chair and funds to engage the campus in opportunities for theological education and growth 

• Academic duties
• As Moehlmann Chaplaincy Chair, serve as administrative faculty and relate to the academic program in ways appropriate to expertise and vocation
• May teach up to one course in each academic term in assignments appropriate to expertise and helpful to the full academic program

Qualifications:

Required:

• Ordained ELCA Pastor
• Experienced preacher, worship leader, pastoral counselor
• Proven ability to provide collaborative leadership for ministries and team building
• Prior experience in ministry with emerging adults

Preferred:

• Doctor of Ministry, Doctor of Divinity, or PhD in a discipline appropriate to College offerings
• Teaching experience in higher education
• Experienced in pastoral counseling and faith formation with teens, emerging adults, and adults
• Knowledge of emerging adult development needs and life issues
• Knowledge of current issues and trends in higher education 

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:

Send letter of application addressing qualifications; curriculum vita; official transcript; responses to ELCA Rostered Ministry Profile questions about “calling” and “convictions” (section III, questions 1 and 2); names, addresses, phone, and e-mail addresses for three professional references to the Wartburg College Human Resources Office at hr@wartburg.edu. See http://www.wartburg.edu/hr for complete information. The successful candidate will have an up-to-date ELCA Rostered Ministry Profile.  Candidates will be asked to teach a sample class and preach as part of the interview.  Review of applications will begin in August.