Erin L. Richman, Ph.D., MBA transforms universities. As Associate Vice President of Student Success at the University of North Florida, she has redefined what student success looks like at a public institution — founding an experiential learning graduation requirement from scratch, building the systems and people that drove three consecutive years of record-breaking retention and transfer graduation rates, and proving that bold institutional bets on students pay off.
A 2024 Slate Icon National Award winner and 2025 U.S. Army ROTC Center of Influence honoree, her work in developmental psychology is cited in 475+ scholarly articles. She is an NSF grant recipient, executive educator at UNF's Coggin College of Business, and author of the historical novel Mary Blair Destiny. She is based in Jacksonville, Florida.
Dr. Richman is a nationally recognized higher education leader, developmental psychologist, and student success innovator.
As Associate Vice President of Student Success at the University of North Florida (UNF), she designed the institution's experiential learning graduation requirement and led Soar to Success — UNF's comprehensive, innovative student success strategy — driving three consecutive years of record-breaking student retention and transfer graduation rates. In Spring 2026, UNF retained 96.5% of FTIC students from Fall to Spring term, the third year of breaking retention records. Those retention gains are already translating to record gains in graduation rates, with 70% of Transfer students graduating in three years or less.
A 2024 Slate Icon National Award winner, Dr. Richman led the launch of myNest, a Slate-powered student success platform deployed across UNF. She was named a U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command Center of Influence in 2025.
Her signature programs at UNF include EngageUNF (experiential learning), Osprey First Summer Pathways, the Experiential Learning Faculty Fellows Program, and the Next Level Student Success professional development programs for university student success staff.
A native Floridian and first-generation college graduate herself, Dr. Richman earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Georgia and her M.B.A. from the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business. Her research on self-concept development, adolescent achievement motivation, and women's identity formation has accumulated 475+ scholarly citations.
She is a UGA Zimmer Research Award recipient, UGA University-Wide Fellow, and Phi Delta Kappa Scholar.
Prior to UNF, Dr. Richman served at Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ), where she founded the Social Enterprise Incubator Competition (funded by Bank of America), launched the Center for Civic Engagement and Service Learning, and led the award-winning Downtown Immersion Project — the first initiative to embed a Florida college in the downtown Jacksonville urban core.
She has secured grants over $3,500,000, including National Science Foundation grants to support student retention in STEM.
Dr. Richman teaches executive leadership through UNF's Coggin College of Business and is the author of Mary Blair Destiny (Two Goddesses Publishing, 2019).
Dr. Richman speaks at state and national higher education conferences on institutional transformation, placing experiential learning at the center of undergraduate education, building data-driven student success systems, user centric technology, and fulfilling the promise of public higher education.