Melissa Zantello

Ms. Zantello is the Executive Director of Academic Strategy. In this role, she leads a team of Academic Strategy Consultants who are academic advisors for partner institutions, consulting with campus leaders to design, deliver, and measure impactful offerings. Zantello joined ACUE in 2015 and originated and led the implementation for ACUE programs for five years, building a team of academics to provide guidance and ongoing support for institutions in their use of ACUE programs. Zantello’s passion lies in assisting higher education faculty to increase their students’ success while developing their own careers – a passion that led her to ACUE.

Prior to joining ACUE, Zantello was the founder and Executive Director of TeamUP, a national group comprised of experienced educators from higher education dedicated to fostering faculty engagement and impact through professional development, consulting, and curriculum design (a part of Houghton Mifflin College Division/Cengage Learning).  Zantello created and led national conference series for student success, developmental education, and teaching with technology, and launched an online portal for professional development comprised of faculty development modules, conference session recordings, and interactive webinars.  Zantello held positions as English faculty, and General Education Chairperson and has continued teaching as an adjunct instructor.

Zantello graduated from the University of Michigan where she earned a BA in English. She also holds an MA in English and an MFA in Writing from Western Michigan University where she helped develop and deliver orientation programs for Teaching Assistants. Throughout her career, she has been actively involved in working with first-year programs, developmental education, online learning, assessment, active learning strategies, and curriculum design and redesign.