Director of Student Engagement

Role Purpose

The Director of Student Engagement is responsible for designing, stewarding, and scaling iLRN’s student-centered initiatives across undergraduate, graduate, and early-career researcher communities. This role ensures that student participation in iLRN is meaningful, developmental, and visible, rather than transactional or peripheral. The Director serves as a connective tissue between students, faculty mentors, practitioners, and the broader iLRN ecosystem.

Opinionated stance: Student engagement is most effective when structured as participatory apprenticeship, not event attendance. This role prioritizes pathways, continuity, and contribution over volume.

Core Responsibilities

1. iLRNFuser Game Jam Leadership

The Director oversees the strategic design and annual execution of the iLRNFuser Game Jam, positioning it as a flagship experiential learning program within iLRN.

Key responsibilities include:

• Establishing the annual theme in coordination with conference leadership and Knowledge Tree branches
• Coordinating mentors, judges, and facilitators across disciplines (learning sciences, design, XR, ethics)
• Ensuring accessibility, inclusion, and global participation (time zones, formats, tools)
• Aligning outputs with iLRN repositories, showcases, or Innovation Garden pathways
• Supporting student teams before, during, and after the jam to encourage continuation beyond the event

The Director ensures the Game Jam functions as both a creative laboratory and a legitimate scholarly-practice onramp, not a one-off competition.

 

2. Doctoral Colloquium Stewardship

The Director serves as the primary steward of the iLRN Doctoral Colloquium, working closely with senior scholars and program chairs.

Responsibilities include:

• Designing the structure and expectations of the Colloquium (review process, feedback norms, mentoring emphasis)
• Recruiting and coordinating faculty discussants and senior mentors
• Supporting doctoral students in articulating research trajectories, methodological clarity, and scholarly identity
• Ensuring continuity between the Colloquium, conference participation, and post-conference scholarly engagement

The Colloquium is positioned as a formative scholarly space, emphasizing intellectual generosity, critical dialogue, and long-term academic development.

3. Mentoring Program Development

The Director designs and maintains iLRN’s student and early-career mentoring ecosystem, spanning formal and informal engagement.

This includes:

• Structuring mentor–mentee pathways (doctoral, post-doc, practitioner, student volunteers)
• Supporting peer mentoring and cohort-based models where appropriate
• Coordinating with Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility leadership to ensure equitable access to mentoring
• Developing lightweight documentation and guidance for mentors and mentees
• Tracking engagement and outcomes to inform continuous improvement

Opinionated stance: Mentoring should be distributed and scaffolded, not dependent on a small number of overextended senior scholars.

Cross-Cutting Functions

• Collaborate with Conference Organizing Committees to integrate student engagement into program design
• Coordinate with the Innovation Garden, Knowledge Tree, and Publications teams to surface student contributions
• Support student visibility through showcases, awards, and leadership pathways
• Contribute to Codex documentation related to student programs and engagement patterns

 

Authority and Autonomy

The Director of Student Engagement operates with delegated authority to:

• Propose program structures and annual improvements
• Recruit volunteers and mentors within approved frameworks
• Recommend recognition mechanisms (awards, certificates, acknowledgments)

Budgetary and policy decisions remain aligned with Executive and Board oversight.

Ideal Profile

• Experience working with graduate students, doctoral researchers, or early-career professionals
• Familiarity with immersive learning, XR, game design, or adjacent fields
• Strong organizational and facilitation skills across distributed, international contexts
• Commitment to ethical, inclusive, and developmental approaches to student participation

Measures of Success

• Sustained student participation across multiple iLRN cycles
• Clear mentoring pathways from student to contributor to leader
• High-quality outputs from the iLRNFuser Game Jam and Doctoral Colloquium
• Positive student feedback indicating intellectual growth and professional confidence