Melissa Irvin
Dr. Irvin earned her B.A. in Psychology from Duke University, a M.Ed in Educational Leadership from Middle Tennessee State University, and an Ed.D. in Higher Education Policy and Leadership from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. Prior to joining Undergraduate Studies in Fall 2017, she was Assistant Vice-President of Student Success at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. As Assistant Dean, Dr. Irvin supports initiatives within academic advising community and leads the Office of Academic Advocacy as well as the Academic Services for USF Athletics. Other responsibilities include functional support for Archivum Insights student success management system, Civitas, DegreeWorks and other technology tools. Her background includes work in academic advising, first-year experience programming and campus-wide retention initiatives. Dr. Irvin’s research interests focus on exploring effective ways of monitoring and measuring student progression as well as evaluating strategies for early interventions to improve student success outcomes.
Leslie Tod
Leslie has worked at the University of South Florida since 2000 and in Undergraduate Studies for the Office of Academic Advocacy since 2013. She earned her undergraduate degree at Eastern Illinois University in Speech Communication and her M.A. degree from the University of South Florida in Communication. While at USF she has taught as an adjunct instructor for the Communication Department and served as an Academic Advisor and Lead Advisor in the College of Arts & Sciences. Prior to working at USF she spent several years in Higher Education in the UK at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the Centre for Human Communication, where she was a senior instructor and course manager.