Biography
Melodye Mac Alpine is the associate dean for student affairs and administration for the College of Law. She has been working in student affairs roles within higher education since 2000, spending most of her career in roles that serve graduate and professional student populations. Mac Alpine approaches her work with students from a perspective that higher education institutions should always be improving processes and approaches to better serve students as they navigate their education to become professionals. She proudly calls herself a “policy nerd” because she loves digging into the broader “whys” and “hows” of what we do in higher education administration, looking for new ways to tackle old challenges.She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and her master’s degree in student personnel administration in higher education from Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 2022, she received her doctor of education (Ed.D) degree in leading and learning from University of Portland. Her degree focused on higher education and student affairs, and her dissertation was titled Exploring Gendered Barriers to Higher Education Leadership for Women in Midlevel Student Affairs Roles.
Mac Alpine is a member of NASPA - Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and the National Association of Law Student Affairs Professionals (NALSAP) She has served in leadership roles within several student affairs organizations, including as a mentor to women in the field. Mac Alpine finds it especially rewarding to support female-identifying students and colleagues and continually seeks opportunities to lead the way in those areas.