Dennis DeSantis, MS

Dennis DeSantis is currently Vice President of focusEDU, LLC offering consulting services to the higher education community, as well as a pat-time adjunct faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh.  Mr. DeSantis retired as a full-time employee from the University of Pittsburgh after 37.5 years of employment on September 30, 2012.  When he retired, he held the position of Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Financial Services at the University of Pittsburgh.  He was responsible for the Student Payment Center, the Student Billing and Accounting Office, the Student Appeals Office, and the University Collections Office.  This division was responsible for the billing and collection of student tuition, fees, room and board (approximately $850M annually), the application of all financial aid, the administration of federal and institutional loans, the collection of University delinquent tuition and loan and miscellaneous receivables, an Ombudsman function, and the determination of tuition eligibility for Pennsylvania residents.

During his full-time employment at the University, he has also held many technology-based and student service positions including Associate Registrar, Manager of Information Resources, and Director of the University's Student On-Line Academic Resource System (SOLARS) Project.  DeSantis served as the business process lead of the five-person Information Architecture and Process Innovation Project, charged with defining an enterprise-wide information architecture and a methodology for conducting business process reengineering.  He has documented the University's architecture project in a series of presentations and papers delivered to CAUSE and EDUCAUSE. 

He was a Department of Education non-federal trainer for higher education fiscal officers and participated on peer review teams.  He has presented and conducted workshops at several regional and national organizations spanning a variety of topics including business process mapping, customer service, leadership, information systems, higher education receivables management and financial literacy.  He has served as a member of the COHEAO Board of Directors and has served as a faculty member for NACUBO's Student Financial Services conference and as an author for NACUBO’s Business Officer magazine and other publications including Managing and Collecting Student Accounts and Loans: A Desk Reference for Educational Receivables Stewardship, 2008, co-authored with David Glezerman. He has published several papers on technology, student receivables, process analysis, and customer service.

He received his B.A. in Sociology at Villanova University, M.S. in Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh and has completed extensive doctoral work in educational administration at the University of Pittsburgh.

Course(s) Taught at Pitt

• PUBSRV 0040 - Public Service Technologies