Vice President of Academic Affairs/Strategy and Advancement
Janelle Elias, M.A.Ed., specializes in strategic planning, incubating big ideas, and scaling innovations across the college and beyond. With more than 25 years of experience in higher education, Elias has a proven track record of leading complex organizations through transformative change.
Elias currently serves as Vice President of both Academic Affairs and Strategy and Advancement, where her leadership continues to shape the institution’s commitment to innovation. She is recognized for her contributions both locally and nationally, having been honored as one of the “Top 50 Women Leaders in Phoenix” by Women We Admire in 2024 and as “Business Woman of the Year” by the Tempe Chamber of Commerce in 2022. She actively mentors emerging leaders through the Maricopa Leadership Institute and contributes to the field as a member of the WGU Labs - College Innovation Network Advisory Board, the HLC Annual Conference Advisory Committee, and the Tempe Chamber Women in Business Council.
Her previous roles in higher education include dean of institutional effectiveness at Rio Salado, leading institutional research, compliance, grants and accreditation efforts; and assistant dean, accreditation and assessment director, and instructional designer at the University of Phoenix Central Administration. Elias began working in online education in 1998 at he Univers ity of Phoenixand later became the first female dean leading the College of Information Systems and Technology across 64 campuses and 210 locations.
Elias is a first-generation community college graduate, earning her AA and AAS in education from Chandler-Gilbert Community College. She earned a B.A. in English from Georgia Southern University and an M.A.Ed. in adult education and distance learning from the University of Phoenix. For her master’s thesis she developed a portfolio-based certificate program in multimedia and visual communication. She has been teaching IT, business, and entrepreneurship courses online since 2006, bringing her expertise to the classroom and the broader educational landscape.