Dr. John T. Wolfe, Jr. is Founder and Principal of Avant-Garde Higher Education Service and Solutions, Inc. which he established in 1970. He retired June 30, 2017 as Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Academic Leadership Development for the University System of Maryland.

His career spans 52 years in the U.S. and abroad where he has served as a high school English teacher, employee relations manager, tenured faculty member, department head, dean, and provost. He has also served as Professor of Linguistics at Cuttington College, Liberia, West Africa, as Executive Director of the National PUSH/Rainbow Coalition, and president of Kentucky State University and Savannah State University respectively. Through these positions he has gained knowledge, experience, and transferable skills covering a range of organizational levels, within and across units and divisions in higher education institutions and systems, as well as public and private sector organizations and corporations.

Professionally, Dr. Wolfe, a trained mediator, has served as Co-chair of the Washington Regional Taskforce Against Campus Prejudice and as Chair of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Summit on Student Retention. He has also served as President of the Higher Education Group of Washington, D.C.

He has held fellowships with the Gulf Oil Faculty Forum, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council on Education. He has been honored as an Old Master by Purdue University and inducted into the Washington, D.C. Urban League’s Senior Hall of Fame.

He earned a B.Ed. in English-Education from Chicago Teachers College, an M.S. in English-Education and Ph.D. in linguistics from Purdue University. As a published scholar, his work covers literary criticism, career development, curriculum, English dialectology, diversity, and photography. His avocations include photography, golf, cycling, jazz, reading science (physics, biology, and technology), and African American literature.