Dr. Michelle Brown-Nevers, known widely for her leadership skills, supports institutions of higher education in enrollment management, change management, innovation, service improvement and other operational areas. Engagements involve reviewing, assessing and refining policies and processes used to recruit, enroll and retain students.
Her experience crosses public and private institutions from community colleges to Ivy league universities. She held progressively responsible positions throughout her career including vice president of enrollment management and student success at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA). Under her leadership, NOVA has made great progress in the ongoing advising redesign work, begun the NOVA Corps student internship program, and established their first strategic enrollment management plan, among other accomplishments. Prior to joining NOVA, Brown-Nevers served as associate vice president for student services at Montgomery County Community College, associate vice president for student registration and financial services at the University of Pennsylvania, and associate vice president for student administrative services at Columbia University. She began her higher education career at New York City College of Technology, formerly New York City Community College. Michelle is currently President of MHBN Consulting, LLC.
She has been a strong advocate for student success. She is known for making transformational change through streamlining and automating processes, improving front line services; creating enrollment and retention initiatives and, developing staff to work across boundaries. She created and supported strategic enrollment management plans to help ensure every student succeeds. She believes that students do not attend higher education institutions to learn the administrative processes; therefore, these processes have to be as intuitive as possible for them.
Brown-Nevers is an active member of the higher education community. She served on advisory committees for the CommonApp, is currently a mentor for the AACRAO ASCEND program, has been an instructor for the U.S. Department of Education and is a charter member of the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education. She has been a consultant to the National Student Clearinghouse and to various universities, including Sullivan County Community College, Lafayette College, Ithaca College, George Washington University and McGill University.
Michelle’s personal interests align with her professional success. She dedicates her time to supporting young people pursue higher education through her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She served as the chair of the Scholarship Committee for the New York Alumnae Chapter. In that role, she initiated mentoring support for these young adults in addition to the funding provided to them. Many of the students awarded scholarships under her leadership completed their programs and have pursued professional careers.
Brown-Nevers holds Master of Education and Doctor of Education degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Education from Baruch College (CUNY). She also completed certificate programs at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Columbia’s Business School. She further completed the Leadership at Penn Program at University of Pennsylvania and the Civitas Leadership Development Program at MCCC.