Coppin State University Announces New Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs
BALTIMORE – Coppin State University President Anthony L. Jenkins, Ph.D. announces the selection of the new provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. Effective June 1, Dr. Chanta M. Haywood will assume the position as the new provost and vice president of Academic Affairs for Coppin State University.
“I am pleased to be in a position to contribute to the history and rich legacy of transformative leadership at Coppin State University, an institution that is dedicated to student success, innovative research and service that is advancing communities in Baltimore and beyond. I am looking forward to working with President Jenkins, the administrative team, faculty, and staff as we carry out his vision for this great university.”
Dr. Haywood is an experienced, practical, analytical, and visionary university administrator, researcher, professor and scholar with a Ph.D. focused in American Literature from the University of California at San Diego (1995) and a Bachelor’s degree in English from Florida A&M University (1990).
With nearly 25 years of executive experience in four university systems (Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Maryland), she has served as a graduate dean, associate provost for academic affairs, associate vice president for research, and vice president for advancement. She has gone through the academic ranks as a faculty member and has received the Outstanding University Teaching Award and Outstanding Faculty Leader Award at Florida State University. As a faculty member at FSU, she also served as the Director of the Communications Program in London.
Her leadership in higher education led to an appointment during the Obama Administration by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Board, where she served as Chair for four years. She has done program and grant reviews, including President Obama's First in the World grant program.
Dr. Haywood is also a prolific writer, with experience in almost every genre of writing in the academy: books, articles, degree proposals, grants, strategic plans, reports, white papers, news articles, blogs, and press releases. Her book, Prophesying Daughters: Black Women Preachers and the Word, 1823-1913, was re-released in a second edition by the University of Missouri Press. In 2020 she gave an invited lecture on Prophesying Daughters to over 300 students at Yale University. She also holds a certificate in Fostering Diversity and Inclusion from Yale (2023).
As a grant writer and manager, Dr. Haywood has served as PI and Co-PI for millions of dollars in federal, private grants, including the NASA, NIH, DOE, IMLS and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and she has successfully managed legislatively earmarked funds and projects.
Dr. Haywood is committed to students gaining access to higher education and has helped hundreds of high school students with college readiness and success on standardized tests by using her own proven program and model, CollegeSmartNow.
Since June of 2024, Dr. Haywood has served as the Interim Provost, and in that time she has realigned the Middle States Reaffirmation process, led the campus through the production of its 2025-2030 strategic plan, created the Provost’s Faculty Fellows Program, the launched a new Undergraduate Research and Problem Solving Initiative, and overseen other critical processes in academic affairs.
“Dr. Chanta Haywood brings profound energy and outstanding experience in advancing knowledge and transforming lives. Her experience aligns with Coppin State University’s priorities,” said President Anthony Jenkins. “As interim provost, under her leadership, we continued to advance our academic agenda, fostered a more synergetic collegial culture across divisions, addressed policy challenges, increased student scholarships, and developed more meaningful commitments to faculty development . . . all of these factors echo the strengths and goals of Coppin.”
Coppin State University officially welcomes Dr. Chanta M. Haywood.
