Rachelle Hernandez is a nationally recognized higher education leader with over twenty-five years of experience in the important work of student access and success through effective higher education leadership and administration. She serves as a frequent speaker at national conferences, conducting workshops in the areas of student success, strategic enrollment management, student engagement, and the effective use of data to support the achievement of both institutional and student outcomes. She has served in a variety of leadership roles across the field, including as faculty in residence for the Harvard Admissions Summer Institute, as a College Board Trustee, a member of the Access and Diversity Collaborative National Advisory Committee, and as a member of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (AACRAO) Ascend Leaders in Enrollment Advising Diversity (LEAD) Leadership Development Program and Curriculum Committee. She currently serves as an instructor and coach for the AACRAO ASCEND Program and as the co-director of the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s (NACAC) Chief Enrollment Officers’ Forum.
Rachelle Hernandez joined the Johns Hopkins community as vice provost for student affairs in 2022. In her role as vice provost, Ms. Hernandez oversees a broad portfolio that focuses on student success and impacts all aspects of the student educational experience from student leadership and engagement to housing and community living, Hopkins dining, Department of Athletics, student conduct, and student success. The portfolio focuses its efforts on fostering student connection, belonging, and inclusion in the co-curricular and academic experience, through partnership and collaboration with faculty and staff across the university community to make it possible for students to take full advantage of all that JHU has to offer. The division’s key work, in collaboration with university partners, is student- and outcomes-focused, and centered on a foundation of equity, inclusion and belonging. Ms. Hernandez served previously as the senior vice provost for enrollment management and student success at the University of Texas at Austin. In this leadership role she was responsible for transforming the student services areas across enrollment management and student success, increasing student enrollment, retention and graduation rates, and leading the university’s work to becoming both a Hispanic Serving Institution and recognized with the Seal of Excelencia and designated as a First-Gen Forward university. Prior to her work at UT Austin, Ms. Hernandez served as associate vice provost for enrollment management and director of admissions at the University of Minnesota.