Jodi Linley, associate professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs in the University of Iowa College of Education, has been selected as a Diamond Honoree for the American College Personnel Association: College Student Educators International (ACPA) Foundation Class of 2021.

Recipients are chosen based on major contributions they have made to the field and their institutions. Their accomplishments will be celebrated during the ACPA 21 Annual Convention Virtual Experience March 1-17 of 2021.

Nominators are charged with raising funds in each honoree’s honor for the ACPA Foundation.

Her nominators wrote: “Jodi represents everything this accolade stands for: continued, outstanding contributions to ACPA as a professional association and the broader higher education and student affairs field, as well as the continued investment in future scholarship and practice.”

Linley was nominated by the following: HESA doctoral candidate Alex C. Lange; Renata Opoczynski, assistant dean of student success assessment and strategic initiatives at Michigan State University; and Cindy Ann Kilgo, assistant professor in higher education and student affairs in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University. Kilgo is also a HESA alumnx.

Linley holds her doctorate in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University and has more than a decade of full-time student affairs leadership experience. Linley’s research has far-reaching practical implications broadly focused on minoritized collegians’ experiences, supports, and success. More specifically, she studies college student meaning-making about campus culture and campus diversity messaging; higher education socialization; and she is principal investigator of multiple research studies focused on LGBTQ+ college student success.

Her nominators also credited Linley for embodying what it means to be a scholar-practitioner and practitioner-scholar.

“Before pursuing her Ph.D. and later becoming a faculty member in the Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) program at the University of Iowa, Jodi worked for 12 years as a full-time practitioner,” they wrote. “She oversaw the Iowa Biosciences Advantage program, facilitating developmental experiences for Students of Color often underrepresented in such fields. Her full-time work solidified her passion for always connecting theory to practice; she always seeks to improve practice through theory while ensuring theory speaks to the realities of practice. In an applied field like student affairs, such a connection is paramount to facilitating students' high-quality developmental experiences.

Her nominators also note how Linley has called ACPA her professional home for almost two decades.

“Jodi is a regular contributor to the 365-day ACPA experience. Like others, she presents her research and scholarship regularly for practitioners and researchers during the Annual Convention. This has included her work on supporting Black women student leaders, creating inclusive policies and practices for transgender students, and the ways students become socialized to (and away from) racist campus norms through the orientation and first-year experience process.”

They further write, “As a practitioner-scholar, Jodi always seeks to connect her work to the practitioners who can best use it to benefit and challenge undergraduate college students. Unlike many others, however, Jodi connects her ACPA service beyond the Annual Convention. She has served on the leadership team of the then-Coalition for LGBT Awareness as its Scholar-in-Residence from 2016 to 2018. In this position, Jodi disseminated practice-relevant knowledge related to LGBTQ+ students’ higher education experiences through webinars, Twitter chats, and appearances on outlets such as Higher Ed Live. She regularly presents at local and state chapters affiliated with ACPA given her work on the National Study of LGBTQ+ Student Success and her research on peer leaders' roles in promoting diversity and inclusion messages. In these ways, Jodi regularly and consistently gives to ACPA and its affiliates."

Linley’s nominators also lauded her commitment to developing the next generation of higher education and student affairs practitioners.

They shared: “It is challenging to capture Jodi’s effervescent spirit in a letter or her CV. She is a practitioner-scholar dedicated to making higher education a better place for all students while also enhancing the knowledge of the student affairs field. She is caring, humble, steadfast, and a force of nature. She is more than deserving to be included in this year’s Diamond Honoree class.”

Linley’s publications are featured in the Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Student Affairs Research & Practice, and New Directions for Student Services, among others. At Iowa, Linley teaches master’s and doctoral courses on college students and their development, teaching and learning in higher education, and advanced qualitative research methods

For more information, visit Linley’s Team Fundraising Page.