Staff

Josephine “Joey” Volpe, is currently Associate Vice Provost for Advising Development and has been acquainted to UIC since 1994 in various capacities, first as an undergraduate and then as an advisor and now as an administrator. While always dedicated to supporting the success of students, Joey began officially working in student success initiatives in 2012 first as the Interim Director of the Undergraduate Success Center, which was developed at the outset of UIC’s Student Success Initiatives, and most recently as the Director of the Office for Advising Development. In her current position, Joey leads campus level professional development for UIC’s advising community, leads and manages UIC’s advising technological system iAdvise, and leads alerting interventions and student success projects. Prior to her current positions in student success and advising development, Joey served UIC and its students in the Office of Special Scholarship Programs starting as Assistant Director in 2006 and moving to Associate Director in 2011. In the OSSP, Josephine specialized in working with the Guaranteed Professional Program Admissions and developed in-depth expertise in pre-health advising, policy development, and administration as the GPPA Undergraduate Coordinator.

Joey is committed wholeheartedly to UIC’s students, staff, and faculty and has served on campus level committees related to advising, enrollment, diversity, equity, and inclusion, employee relations, and admissions. She has served on the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) Professional Development Committee, was awarded one of 2019’s Outstanding Advising Administrator Awards by NACADA, and is a UIC alumna with a B.A. in Art History focusing on Pre-Columbian Mexico and a M.Ed. in Educational Studies focusing on advising as curriculum and poverty’s effects on education, particularly higher education.

Lisa Hehman has been a higher education professional for 19 years and has been dedicated to the success of students throughout her career. She first joined UIC as Associate Athletics Director for Academics and Student-Athlete Development in 2019, bringing us her considerable expertise in working with student-athletes at institutions including Cleveland State University and University of Kansas.

As a strong advocate for the student experience and guided by a philosophy dedicated to helping students become independent, self-regulated, lifelong learners, Lisa built strong relationships within our advising community before joining the OADSS team.  In her current director role, Lisa strongly advocates for the needs of advisors, brings fearless, bold, creative thinking, and true passion of the profession. She also oversees the Professional Advisor Development and Enrichment (PAVE) Committee for the UIC advising community.

Lisa has a B.G.S. in Communication Studies with emphasis in Biology and Journalism from the University of Kansas, and a M.A. in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Nick Ardinger (nobody calls him Eric) came to UIC in 2001, and spent almost 18 years of service in Housing. He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from UIC in 2012. He served on the original taskforces for the Student Success Initiative and has worked together with a number of advisors in a range of ways from Summer College to working on individual student cases and has served as a longstanding member of the OAD Steering Committee. In fact, he was the co-developer of our Annual Advisor Week! He works on iAdvise, Early Alerts (iAlert), and all of the areas of OAD training and professional development.

His B.A. from the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands (in California) is in Comparative Literature & Education.
His M.A. from the University of Pittsburgh (in Pennsylvania) is in English (with a certificate in cultural studies).
He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a strong proponent of liberal education.

Shannon Dwyer, currently serving as the Executive Director of the Office of Student System Services (OSSS), a unit of 18 people. Shannon has been with the University for 21 years and with OSSS since 2016. Her focus for the office is centered on the improvement of student system lifecycle processes, support of our colleague/constituents needs, planning and execution of organizational development activities, and disbursement of student data in a responsible manner. Shannon holds a B.A. with a Concentration in Information Systems from DePaul University and a M.Ed. from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.