About the Vice Provost for Student Success

Jeannie Brown Leonard began her tenure as K-State's first vice provost for student success in January 2020. In this role, Brown Leonard provides leadership in the student retention, success and progression areas of strategic enrollment management.

Prior to joining the K-State team, Brown Leonard served as the dean of student academic affairs, advising, retention and transitions at George Mason University from May 2008 to December 2019. There, she lead the university's academic affairs student success strategy and provided leadership and vision for the faculty, staff and graduate assistants in the Center for Academic Advising, Retention and Transitions. Her work included setting strategic direction and campus priorities shaped by the university's Student Success and Retention Action Council. She was principal investigator for the iPASS — Integrated Planning & Advising for Student Success — grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Using focus group data, Brown Leonard worked to improve George Mason's transfer student experience, which included providing resources for community college counselors and transfer students via a website that obtained more than 45,000 views annually.

Along with collaborating with George Mason's 10 school and college student academic affairs units to improve advising practice, Brown Leonard led the adoption and integration of the Navigate Mason technology platform to include all academic units, athletics and five student service offices.

Before joining George Mason, Brown Leonard served at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, as assistant dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies and as assistant to the dean for special student recognition and an academic advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences.

She has taught courses at George Mason University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She also has been an invited speaker and presenter on student success, learning, engagement and assessment at conferences and professional meetings across the country, and has published her work in Research in Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, NASPA Journal and more.

Brown Leonard earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Mount Holyoke College, a master's degree in higher education and student affairs administration from the University of Vermont, and a doctorate in college student personnel from the University of Maryland.