Assistant Dean for Student Development, Philadelphia University

Doctoral Candidate in Higher Education, Florida State University

email: ValenteA@PhilaU.edu Curriculum Vitae (pdf file)

Aurélio currently serves as Assistant Dean for Student Development at Philadelphia University and is a doctoral candidate in higher education at Florida State University.  At Philadelphia University, Aurélio coordinates campus efforts to provide a quality first-year experience and supervises the offices of Community Service Learning and Spiritual Development.  As a doctoral student, Aurelio’s research interests include student development in the first year of college and institutional efforts to promote student success and engagement.  He has published several articles regarding service-learning, first-year experience and ethics in higher education in the Journal of College and Character and served as a contributing chapter author for the third edition of The Handbook for Student Affairs Administration. 

Aurelio has been working in higher education at five different institutions in locations ranging from New England, Mid-Atlantic and Florida, and brings fifteen years of experience in a variety of student affairs areas including residence life, student leadership, service-learning, orientation, and first-year experience, along with five years of adjunct faculty appointments in varying programs of academic study.

His belief in the value of well delivered comprehensive student centered programs and the vital role of service and leadership is derived from the role they played in his own life as a first generation college student. Having been born and raised in Portugal, Aurélio has a deeply held commitment to appreciation for diversity and the impact of access to higher education has to uplifting lives in all communities.

Aurelio earned his B.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth in 1993, his M.Ed. from Suffolk University in 1999, and his MBA from University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth in 2000 and anticipates the completion of his doctorate in Higher Education from Florida State University in 2009.  Aurelio is on the NODA Boston planning committee and in 2007 won the prestigious Norman K. Russell Scholarship from NODA.  In 2006 he was presented with the Outstanding Service to Massachusetts College Personal Association Award from ACPA and the Sherrill W. Ragans’ Leadership & Service Award from the College of Education at Florida State University in 2008.