Dr. Curtis B. Charles, who currently serves as the senior associate vice chancellor for institutional transformation at Fayetteville State University and founding executive director of the Center for Defense and Homeland Security, has been selected to lead Tiffin University in Ohio.
Charles, who has held administrative and teaching positions at the University of Miami, Barry University, Howard University and Morgan State University is an expert on cybersecurity issues and has won millions of dollars in national grants and contracts for the creation of Fayetteville’s Center for Defense and Homeland Security (CDHS).
“We took it from scratch,” said Charles of the center that he helped to create. “We were very entrepreneurial in our strategy.”
Charles, who has also held corporate positions with several companies, including IBM, said that Tiffin’s focus on homeland security made the job particularly attractive. Tiffin offers associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees and has a robust online program.
“I was looking for a fit that’s in line with what I’m doing,” said Charles in an interview with Diverse. “We cannot outsource national security.”
At Tiffin, whose student population is about 97 percent White, Charles, who was born in Trinidad, said that he has plans to diversify the campus and to increase retention and graduation rates.
“Diversity is an issue,” said Charles, who will become the first Black president of the rural university founded in 1888. “I come to higher education from a business perspective, but I want to impact the lives of young people because of [what] I came through to receive an education.”
