Erin L. Richman, Ph.D., MBA is an executive leader in enterprise transformation who helps public universities build the organizational capacity to translate strategic vision into measurable, lasting institutional change.
As Associate Vice President for Student Success at the University of North Florida, she leads a broad portfolio spanning academic support, experiential learning, institutional strategy, technology modernization, and organizational effectiveness. Working across Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, Information Technology, and executive leadership, she helps align strategy, governance, data, and operations to advance university-wide priorities.
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Her leadership has contributed to three consecutive years of record institutional performance while strengthening the systems that make improvement sustainable. First-year retention has risen from 79% to 87%, Transfer graduation rates from 60.5% to 76%, and gaps between first-generation, Pell-eligible, and underrepresented minority students have been effectively closed. These results emerged from the enterprise systems she designed, including myNest (2024 Slate Icon National Award winner), the Soar to Success coordinated intervention model, and UNF's first-ever experiential learning graduation requirement.
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A 2024 Slate Icon National Award winner and 2025 U.S. Army ROTC Center of Influence honoree, her research in developmental psychology is cited in 475+ scholarly articles. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of Georgia and an MBA from the University of Florida, and has secured more than $4 million in external funding including NSF grants. She teaches executive leadership through UNF's Coggin College of Business. She writes and speaks nationally on institutional transformation, organizational design, data-informed decision making, and the future of public higher education.
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She believes lasting transformation occurs when institutions build the organizational capacity to execute strategy, not simply launch more initiatives.
Dr. Erin Richman is a nationally recognized higher education leader who designs and leads enterprise systems that transform the student experience at scale.
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As Associate Vice President for Student Success at the University of North Florida, she leads institution-wide strategy to align advising, analytics, communications, and academic support around the full student journey—from entry through graduation and career launch. She has built and operationalized a coordinated student success architecture that integrates real-time data, cross-functional action, and leadership decision-making across academic and administrative units.
Her work has driven multiple consecutive years of record-setting outcomes and transformed the UNF student experience. In Spring 2026, UNF retained 96.5% of first-time-in-college students from fall to spring -- the third consecutive year of record retention -- transfer students are now graduating at rates exceeding 70% within three years.
Dr. Richman led the development of several core components of this system, including myNest, a Slate-powered student success platform (2024 Slate Icon National Award); Soar to Success, a cross-unit model for coordinated communication and intervention; and EngageUNF, a university-wide experiential learning platform embedded into the undergraduate experience. She also designed UNF’s institution-wide experiential learning graduation requirement and leads faculty partnership initiatives that integrate experiential learning into the academic core.
Her work sits at the intersection of strategy, analytics, and organizational design, with a focus on aligning decentralized units, translating data into coordinated institutional action, and removing barriers across the student experience.
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Prior to UNF, Dr. Richman held leadership roles at the University of Georgia and Florida State College at Jacksonville, where she built and led academic partnerships across faculty and administrative units, directed enterprise strategic planning, and launched institution-wide initiatives. These included a Bank of America–funded Social Enterprise Incubator, the Center for Civic Engagement and Service Learning, and a downtown immersion initiative focused on urban integration and adaptive reuse.
She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Georgia and an MBA from the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. Her research on human development and achievement motivation has been cited more than 475 times.
Dr. Richman has secured over $3.5 million in external funding, including National Science Foundation grants, and teaches executive leadership through UNF’s Coggin College of Business. She is the author of Mary Blair Destiny (2019) and a frequent national speaker on institutional transformation, data-informed student success systems, and the future of public higher education.
2024 Slate Icon National Award | 2025 U.S. Army ROTC Center of Influence