Jose Aviles
Dr. Jose Aviles serves as the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management at Temple University, where he leads strategic initiatives to expand access, opportunity, and student success. Under his leadership, Temple University increased enrollment by 30%, with historically underrepresented student enrollment growing by more than 40%. A signature achievement, Dr. Aviles created the Temple Promise, a groundbreaking initiative providing a last-dollar, need-based grant to remove financial barriers to attending Temple, which led to a 67% increase in new freshmen from inner-city Philadelphia.
Before joining Temple, Dr. Aviles served as Vice President for Enrollment and Student Success at Louisiana State University (LSU), where he led six consecutive years of record-breaking enrollment growth. During his tenure, LSU’s first-year class size expanded by 49%, while historically underrepresented student enrollment grew by 144% and Pell recipient enrollment increased by 82%. His leadership also contributed to LSU achieving its highest retention and graduation rates in institutional history, significantly narrowing equity gaps.
Dr. Aviles has focused on scaling evidence-based student success strategies throughout his career. At LSU, he established the university’s first student success and retention unit and led a comprehensive restructuring to streamline student support services. He introduced predictive analytics, optimized student-to-advisor ratios, introduced strategic retention grants to reduce financial distress, and developed a summer bridge program for low-income, first-generation students, which resulted in higher retention rates than the university average. He also implemented an enterprise-wide student success management platform, redesigning processes to create a proactive, data-informed approach to student support.
A first-generation college graduate, Dr. Aviles is committed to removing barriers to access and student success through innovation, strategic planning, and institutional collaboration. His contributions have been nationally recognized, receiving the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Peter S. Bryant Award for Excellence in Marketing and Recruitment twice (2015 and 2021), as well as the EAB Visionary Leadership Award (2022) for implementing institutional change that improved student outcomes.
With over 26 years of experience, Dr. Aviles has held leadership roles at nine institutions, including private liberal arts colleges, regional public universities, open-enrollment community colleges, and four public flagship institutions. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in History, a Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership, all from Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ.
