Dr. Cassandre Giguere Alvarado is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education and Teaching Excellence in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. Over the last 25 years, she has designed and led student success innovations that have dramatically increased persistence and graduation rates at one of the nation’s leading public research universities. Most recently, Dr. Alvarado was one of the chief architects of the University’s 4-year graduation rate improvements and her work has been recognized by the Association of Public & Land Grant Universities, the National Academic Advising Association, and the National Resource Center on the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. In addition to her national awards, Cassandre’s innovations in student success have been replicated across the country and within all academic institutions in the University of Texas System.
Dr. Alvarado is a Professor in the School of Advertising and Public Relations and in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a Fellow of the F.J. Heyne Centennial Professorship in Communication. She teaches classes on communication, leadership, and student success research and strategy. Her passion for student success is highlighted in her scholarship – using combined strategies for improving student success at scale and designing easy-to-implement student success interventions in individual classrooms. Her current research focuses on innovations in student success, including incentive-based scholarships, academic success programs and support for underrepresented students. Her most recent publication focuses on specific strategies to improve success and graduation for underrepresented students. She’s previously written on using analytics to design both classroom and institutional student success interventions.
She led UT-Austin’s First-Generation Commitment Working Group to national recognition as a NASPA First Forward Campus and works with campuses to enhance the success of both first generation and low-income students. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Initiative for the Development of Academic Innovation at LASPAU-Harvard University, where she has worked with more than 500 faculty from Latin America and the Caribbean to help improve student success and retention. Dr. Alvarado holds a bachelor, master and doctoral degree from The University of Texas at Austin. Click here to read Cassandre’s full CV that lists her teaching and work experience, publications, presentations, honors, awards, professional service, research, and media mentions.
Award-winning Student Success Expert
In 2018, Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS), a program in which Dr. Alvarado led at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, won an Advising Technology Innovation Award at the National Academic Advising Association’s (NACADA) annual conference. The program was housed within UT’s Student Success Initiatives, which Cassandre led as Executive Director. Click here to read more about the award and program.
Dr. Alvarado chaired UT Austin’s First Generation Commitment Working Group, whose work the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) awarded for supporting first-generation students. Click here to read more about UT being nationally recognized for the efforts Cassandre spearheaded to support first-generation students.
Dr. Cassandre Alvarado directed the Path to Admission through Co-Enrollment (PACE) program, which was a recipient of the 2017 Outstanding Institutional Advising Program Award given by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). The program, a partnership between UT Austin and Austin Community College (ACC), was recognized for its exemplary academic advising services for students.