Dr. Tiffany Beth Mfume serves as the Associate Vice Provost for Student Success and Retention Initiatives, providing leadership, direction, and oversight of the university’s effort to meet student needs, enhance student progression and retention, and improve graduation rates. Additionally, Dr. Mfume supports, develops, leads, and coordinates efforts that make it possible for students to thrive, with attention to the needs of first-generation, limited-income, international, and underrepresented students. Her core responsibilities include expanding collaborations to implement a systems-thinking approach.
Before joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Mfume served in multiple leadership roles for 24 years at her alma mater, Morgan State University. As Associate Vice President for Student Success and Retention at Morgan, she managed new student and parent orientation, placement testing, Starfish Retention Solutions’ Early Alert and Connect systems, EAB Navigate, first-year advisement, financial literacy, alumni mentoring, and academic recovery among other programs and services. Her innovative leadership at Morgan helped to promote both retention and graduation rate increases of more than ten points. Under her leadership, Morgan’s Office of Student Success and Retention received numerous national awards including the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ Project Degree Completion Award. Prior to her employment history at Morgan, Dr. Mfume held positions with the Society for In Vitro Biology and Birch & Davis Associates, Inc., in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Mfume is a frequent contributor and speaker at higher education conferences and author of the nationally recognized books, The College Completion Glass—Half-Full or Half-Empty? Exploring the Value of Postsecondary Education (2019) and What Works at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Nine Strategies for Increasing Retention and Graduation Rates (2015), both published by Rowman & Littlefield. She has served on numerous national committees including the NASPA Advising Technology Working Group, the College Board Colloquium Planning Committee, the EDUCAUSE Program Committee, the Executive Committee for the Commission on Information, Measurement, and Analysis (CIMA) of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, and the USA Funds Advisory Council.
A Baltimore native, Dr. Mfume earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology, a master’s degree in Sociology, and a doctoral degree in Public Health all from Morgan State University.
