Dr. Aurélio Manuel Valente

With nearly 30 years of progressive experience in the administration of higher education, Dr. Aurélio Manuel Valente was recently appointed as the inaugural Regional Assistant Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Studies for the University of South Florida (USF) at the St. Petersburg campus. In this role, Dr. Valente serves as the primary contact for academic colleges and departments for undergraduate programs of study at USF St. Petersburg, and supervises the Debbie Nye Sembler Student Success Center, the academic advocates, and the advising and professional staff in the Academic Advising Opportunity Center. Dr. Valente also works to support retention and graduation initiatives and ensure that campus personnel are using university-wide data and analytics platforms. 

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Previously, Dr. Valente served as the Executive Director of Strategy and Operations for the Undergraduate College at National Louis University (NLU) where he also served as the founding Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students. Enrolling 10,050 students, NLU is one of the oldest and most progressive universities in Chicago. Federally designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution, NLU is among the most diverse universities in the Midwest, helping students of all ages and backgrounds achieve their personal and professional goals.

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Dr. Valente’s research interests include institutional efforts to promote student engagement and academic success and the study of student development in the first year of college. He has published several articles regarding first-year experience, service–learning, and ethics in higher education in the Journal of College and Character and served as a contributing chapter author for the third and fourth editions of The Handbook of Student Affairs Administration.

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Most recently, Dr. Valente has been the Principle Investigator (PI), or co-PI, for two grants addressing equity gaps in student success rates, including authoring two articles entitled “Building an equity-minded pathway for transfer students” published in Peer Review and in a national report recently released by the American Association of Colleges and Universities entitled “A Vision for Equity.”