Dr. Deborah L. Floyd

Professor, Higher Education Leadership
Educational Leadership & Research Methodology
Florida Atlantic University
dfloyd@fau.edu

Dr. Floyd’s career spans 50 years of academic service in universities and community colleges in Texas, Iowa, Kentucky, Virginia, and Florida. Her career includes service as a professor, community college president, vice president and dean of students, assistant to a university chancellor and a university graduate dean. Since 2001, she has served as a faculty member where she specializes in higher education leadership. She has supervised over 50 dissertations, taught a variety of online and in-person courses, and oversees the higher education leadership Ph.D. program. Dr. Floyd is a strong supporter of mentoring and in 2024 established the Floyd Scholars Fund to support Ph.D. research and mentoring in higher education leadership at Florida Atlantic.

Her scholarly publications include over 80 books, monographs, articles and chapters on higher education leadership including challenges of presidential leadership, workforce education, student success and student development leadership, community college student health, graduate education challenges, community college teacher education, community college baccalaureates and community college leadership. She has testified before state and federal legislative bodies and her expert views about the changing landscape of higher education have been featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Florida Trend Magazine, New England Journal of Higher Education and National Public Radio (NPR).

Among her national service includes Senior Fellow with the Association for American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); President of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) ; Board member of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and chair of their Governmental Relations/Policy Commission and Secretary of the American College Personnel Association (ACPA).

Since 2011, she has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Community College Journal of Research and Practice, a 49-year-old scholarly refereed journal published monthly by Taylor and Francis which is a Division of Routledge Publishing. She has served on several prestigious editorial boards and routinely reviews scholarly book proposals from numerous publishers. While she enjoys publishing her own writings, she also enjoys assisting others with publishing research that helps inform policy and practice in the field of community college education, higher education and leadership.

Dr. Floyd has received numerous national awards including recent awards such as the 2025 FAU President’s Leadership Award; the 2025 Hall of Fame Leadership Award from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the 2022 Senior Scholar Award from the AACC Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC). She was the first recipient of the Woman in Higher Education Achievement Award from the National Panhellenic Council (NPC) and received the 2010 Distinguished Service Award from the CSCC. Her most prized award was being named by students as the 2011 University Distinguished Professor of the Year at FAU. Additionally, in 2018, she was featured in a video produced by Florida Atlantic University as one of FAU’s favorite professors.

She earned her doctoral degree from Virginia Tech with a specialization in community college education and counseling. Her master’s and bachelor’s degrees were earned from East Texas A & M University with major areas of study in speech, English, counseling and higher education. She is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management and the League for Innovation in Community College’s Executive Leadership Institute.

Locally, Dr. Floyd serves on the Board of Directors of Funding Arts Broward (FAB) and the Island City Stage theatre in Wilton Manors. Also, in her leisure time she enjoys movies, live theatre and the arts, Pilates, walking on the beach, and conversations with interesting people.

April 2025 Biographical Summary