Melodie Wyttenbach

Melodie Wyttenbach, Ph.D. ( Saint Louis University ’99) 

Dr. Melodie Wyttenbach is the Executive Director of the Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College and a faculty member in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Recognized as a national leader in training superintendents, principals, and teachers for effective and principled leadership of Catholic elementary schools, Dr. Wyttenbach has had leadership positions at Boston College and the University of Notre Dame. Prior to Boston College, Dr. Wyttenbach first served as a president of a Nativity School in her home city of Milwaukee, after which she was appointed the Academic Director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program at the University of Notre Dame from 2015 until 2019. The Mary Ann Remick Program is a component of the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) at Notre Dame. An inclusive leader, Dr. Wyttenbach continues to collaborate with the University of Notre Dame by organizing a council of superintendents of Catholic schools that provides guidance and reflection about leadership for superintendents from 24 dioceses across the United States.  

As head of the Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College since 2019, she has introduced several new programs that support teachers and principals in Catholic schools across the United States. Among them include: a year-long program for teachers called DEI, which emphasizes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in Catholic Schools; a masters cohort program in the Lynch School that extends over two years and two summers, and allows teachers to get a master's degree in education from Boston College even as they continue teaching during the year in their respective Catholic elementary or high schools; a summer immersion program for teachers to gain first-hand experience of the challenges faced by young Hispanic children who cross the southern U.S. border either accompanied or unaccompanied by parents, and a Summer Teacher Institute that includes training for recently hired teachers at East Coast Catholic elementary schools that provides them with basic teaching skills and then accompanies the teachers through the school year with one-on-one mentoring.  

Another program Dr. Wyttenbachhas supported and expanded is a national network of two-way immersion learning at Catholic schools. This network facilitates the sharing of research and ideas in two-way language immersion programs nationwide that help students involved in bilingual, bicultural, and bi-literate educational ventures. She also co-directed a national study and report (“Cultivating Talent”) on the powerful influence of Catholic Hispanic teachers on attracting more Hispanic students to Catholic schools.  

A mother of three young children, Dr. Wyttenbach and her husband also actively participate in a Sunday religious education series called “Breakfast with God” that reaches about 100 children weekly.