Rochelle (Shelley) L. Rodrigo, Ph.D., is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Success in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. In this role, Dr. Rodrigo serves as a member of the Dean’s senior leadership team and is responsible for curriculum review and assessment, enrollment management, student recruitment, retention and completion, undergraduate advising, and student engagement across the college. She leads the Graduate Council in SBS and serves on campus-wide committees including UCAAC and GCAAC. With the Academic Affairs and Student Success team, Dr. Rodrigo coordinates projects to support student learning, curriculum design, delivery, and assessment, as well as teacher development in SBS and across the University of Arizona.

While completing her Ph.D. in English, with a concentration in Rhetoric, Composition & Linguistics, at Arizona State University, Dr. Rodrigo, was English faculty at Mesa Community College. After completing her degree in 2009, she joined the Department of English at Old Dominion University in 2011. Dr. Rodrigo joined the University of Arizona in 2015 to design and develop the Online Writing Program and then for seven years served as the Senior Director of the Writing Programs, one of the University’s largest instructional units, overseeing more than 130 instructors and 6,000 students each semester. Under her leadership, the Writing Programs increased course fill rates three years running, navigated a significant enrollment downsizing, secured $12,000 annual raises for Career Track faculty during an institutional financial crisis, and completed a multi-year, faculty-driven process to establish the unit’s first Bylaws and Values Statement. She has also led initiatives in generative AI pedagogy, linguistically responsive teaching assistant training, and anti-racist Writing Across the Curriculum programming, several funded through university and federal grants. Dr. Rodrigo’s research spans digital literacy, online writing instruction, and writing program administration; she is co-author of the award-winning Teaching Literacy Online: Observing, Analyzing, and Producing in Multiple Media (NCTE Press, 2024), recipient of the 2025 Divergent Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research Publication, and co-author of The Cengage Guide to Research, now in its fourth edition. She serves on the editorial review boards of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and Teaching English in the Two-Year College.

Dr. Rodrigo has strong commitments to teaching, mentorship, and service. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in composition, digital rhetoric, and professional and technical writing, and she chairs or serves on numerous doctoral and master’s committees in the Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English program. Nationally, she completed a term as President of the National Council of Teachers of English (2024–2025) following service as Vice President and President-Elect, and she has held leadership roles with the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the Two-Year College English Association, and the American Council of Learned Societies. At the University of Arizona, Dr. Rodrigo was selected as one of sixteen AI Fellows across the entire campus. She has also served on the SBS Research Institute Advisory Board, the SBS Financial Task Force, and the University’s AI Syllabus Committee, among other leadership and governance roles supporting student success, faculty development, and institutional assessment.