Brad Harmon is the Assistant Dean for the First-Year and Second-Year Experience and provides leadership, management, and coordination of programming and initiatives that facilitate first-year and second-year undergraduate students’ transition, thriving, and success. He is responsible for working collaboratively with faculty, staff, and administrators to implement an intentional set of programs and initiatives that support the first two years of the developmental four-year pathway outlined in The Furman Advantage.

Brad is primarily responsible for the administrative operations of Furman’s innovative nationally award wining Pathways Program®; serves as director of the Pathways Peer Mentor Program; coordinates the first-year and second-year academic advising program; and collaborates with Student Life to plan and implement new student orientation. He was one of the leading administrative voices behind the development of the Pathways Program® and has served as a Pathways advisor since 2017. He serves as the lead administrator for the campus-wide Peer Educator and Peer Mentor Institute and develops training modules and workshops for first-year experience peer mentors. He counsels students on academic planning and works with those students who are experiencing academic difficulties.

Brad is a Furman graduate of the class of 1997, where he earned a B.A. in history, and he has an M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from the University of South Carolina and a Ph.D. in Counseling and Student Personnel Services from the University of Georgia. His career has included work in both academic affairs and student life. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Dean in 2015, Dr. Harmon spent six years working in Furman's Division of Student Life where he served as the administrative director for Engaged Living, had oversight of the residence life program, and developed the Student Conduct Board. He serves on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, a semiannual refereed journal providing current research on the first college year and other significant student transitions.

Dr. Harmon's research focuses on the peer mentoring of first-year undergraduate students, a passion that was cultivated from his experiences as a First-Year Advisor (FRAD) while he was a student at Furman. In 2022, he was named to All-Southern Conference Faculty and Staff Team.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Georgia
• M.Ed., University of South Carolina
• B.A., Furman University