Where Student Success Meets Institutional Transformation
Dr. Jodi Bailey Accavallo is a higher education executive, national speaker, and strategist whose work focuses on helping colleges and universities redesign institutions to improve student success, strengthen organizational effectiveness, and expand opportunity. Her leadership centers on the belief that student success is not the responsibility of a single office or division, but the outcome of institutional systems intentionally designed to foster belonging, reduce barriers, coordinate support, and empower students to succeed.
As Vice President for Student Affairs at Temple University, Jodi serves as the executive lead for the Student Success pillar of the university's strategic plan, guiding institution wide initiatives that strengthen retention, persistence, belonging, and degree completion. She also leads Temple's implementation of the National Institute for Student Success (NISS) framework and serves as the university's institutional liaison to the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), connecting national research, innovation, and evidence based practice with institutional strategy and measurable outcomes.
At the center of Jodi's leadership is an ethos of care, the belief that colleges and universities have a responsibility to intentionally design environments where every student can belong, seek help, overcome barriers, and reach their full potential. Rather than viewing care as a collection of programs or services, she frames it as a leadership philosophy that shapes institutional strategy, organizational design, policy, culture, and decision making. She believes care and accountability are not competing values. Together, they create the conditions for student success and institutional excellence.
Throughout her career, Jodi has challenged traditional organizational models by demonstrating that student success should never depend on a student's ability to navigate institutional complexity. Instead, institutions should intentionally remove barriers, simplify access, connect people and resources, and create seamless experiences that allow students to focus on learning, growth, wellbeing, and achievement. Her work spans academic and student support, behavioral intervention, student wellbeing, basic needs, crisis response, student engagement, community partnerships, and strategic planning. She views these not as separate initiatives, but as interconnected components of a comprehensive institutional strategy for student success.
With more than two decades of executive leadership across public and private higher education, Jodi has guided institutions through enrollment challenges, fiscal transformation, organizational restructuring, strategic planning, accreditation, and large scale operational change while advancing measurable improvements in student outcomes. She believes institutional
effectiveness and student success are inseparable, and that the strongest universities intentionally align people, processes, resources, and strategy around a shared commitment to student achievement.
Much of Jodi's work has focused on the unique opportunities and challenges facing urban public universities. She is passionate about helping institutions expand access, strengthen belonging, remove structural barriers, and create pathways that improve educational attainment, economic mobility, and community impact.
A frequent national speaker and advisor, Jodi partners with colleges, universities, governing boards, foundations, and higher education organizations on institutional transformation, student success, organizational design, leadership, change management, and creating conditions that allow students and institutions to flourish. She currently serves as Co Chair of NASPA's National Coalition on Student Success, is a member of the editorial board for the NASPA Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, serves on the Board of Directors for Campus Philly, and teaches as an adjunct faculty member. Her work has been featured by The Chronicle of Higher Education, PBS NewsHour, NBC News, and other national media outlets.
Jodi earned her Ph.D. in Educational Research, Assessment, and Program Evaluation from Seton Hall University, where her research examined persistence among first generation Latino college students. She continues to mentor emerging leaders and advise institutions seeking to connect student success with organizational effectiveness, operational excellence, and long-term institutional sustainability.
Jodi believes student success is not something institutions provide. It is something they intentionally design for. Through an ethos of care, strategic leadership, and institutional transformation, her work challenges higher education to rethink how colleges and universities create the conditions for every student to thrive.