Tia Brown McNair

Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, diversity, inclusive excellence, high-impact educational practices, and student success, including AAC&U’s Network for Academic Renewal series of yearly working conferences. McNair also directs AAC&U’s Summer Institute on High-Impact Educational Practices and Student Success. McNair serves at the project director for AAC&U’s “Advancing Roadmaps for Community College Leadership to Improve Student Learning and Success,” and a newly funded Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) project “Committing to Equity and Inclusive Excellence: Campus-Based Strategies for Student Success.” She is a co-PI on another project “Advancing Underserved Student Success through Faculty Intentionality in Problem-Centered Learning.” McNair chaired AAC&U’s Equity Working Group that was part of the General Education Maps and Markers (GEMs) project that represented a large-scale, systematic effort to provide design principles for 21st century learning and long-term student success. She is a co-author on the publication Assessing Underserved Students’ Engagement in High-Impact Practices.

Prior to joining AAC&U, McNair served as the Assistant Director of the National College Access Network (NCAN) in Washington, DC. McNair’s previous experience also includes serving as a Social Scientist/Assistant Program Director in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation (NSF); Director of University Relations at the University of Charleston in Charleston, West Virginia; the Statewide Coordinator for the Educational Talent Search Project at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission; and the Interim Associate Director of Admissions and Recruitment Services at West Virginia State University. She has served as an adjunct faculty member at several institutions. McNair earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and English at James Madison University and holds a master’s in English from Radford University and a doctorate in higher education administration from George Washington University.