Appointments, Resignations, Deaths (11/24/2017)

Chief executives

Appointments

Deborah J. Curtis, provost and chief learning officer at the University of Central Missouri, will become president of Indiana State University early next year. She will be the first woman to serve in that role. Ms. Curtis will succeed Daniel J. Bradley, who has led the university since 2008.

David Johns, vice president for academic affairs at Union College, in Kentucky, will become president of Ferrum College on January 1. The previous president, Joseph Spooner, was released from his contract in May, after less than one year at the helm, and Jennifer Braaten has been serving as interim president since then.

Ashish Vaidya, interim president and former provost at St. Cloud State University, will become president of Northern Kentucky University on July 1. Gerard St. Amand has been serving as interim president there since May, when Geoffrey S. Mearns left to lead Ball State University.

Resignations

Linda Thomas-Glover, president of Eastern Shore Community College since 2009, will step down early next year to become a vice president at the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Chief academic officers

Appointments

Jay Akridge, interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity at Purdue University at West Lafayette, to permanent status in that role.

Michael T. Orr, provost and dean of faculty at Lake Forest College, to dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs at Skidmore College, effective July 16, 2018.

Eunice Tarver, interim provost for the northeast campus at Tulsa Community College, to permanent provost, in conjunction with continuing in her role as assistant vice president for diversity and inclusion there.

Other top administrators

Appointments

Brian Bava, associate dean of admissions for Concordia University School of Law, to vice president for enrollment management at the College of Idaho.

Brandon Gilliland, vice president for finance at Wake Forest University, to chief financial officer at the University of Miami.

Meredith E. Green, a lawyer at McGuire Woods LLP in Charlotte, N.C., and alumna of Furman University, became general counsel at Furman University.

Deans

Appointments

Alvin Abraham, executive director of KIPP Minnesota, a charter-school operator, to dean of Dougherty Family College, a new two-year college for financially needy students that is part of the University of St. Thomas.

Scott H. Baker, associate dean of the Stiller School of Business at Champlain College, to dean.

Joe Colletti, associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University, and associate director of the university’s Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, to interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and interim director of the experiment station.

Reetika Dhawan, co-chair of the mathematics division at Arizona Western College, to dean for career and technical education.

Mildred Rigney Johnson, associate vice provost for enrollment management and director of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech, to dean of admissions at Radford University, effective January 1.

Jo-Ann Lipford Sanders, associate dean and director of the graduate-counseling program at Heidelberg University, to dean of the School of Education & Counseling.

Ellen J. MacKenzie, a professor and former chair of the department of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University, to dean of the school.

Julie O’Reilly, chair of the department of communication and media, and associate professor of communication and women’s and gender studies at Heidelberg University, to dean of the School of Communication, Humanities, Social Sciences & the Arts.

E.K. (Eun) Park, special assistant to the vice president for research and the Graduate College at Kennesaw State University, to associate provost and dean of research and sponsored programs at North Carolina Central University.

Jeannette E. Riley, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, to dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Rhode Island.

Resignations

Lizabeth A. Cohen, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University since 2012, says she will step down in June 2018.

Retirements

Allen Lanham, dean of library services at Eastern Illinois University, retired on June 30. He had served as dean since 1991.

Department chairs

Appointments

Jonathan A. Becker, acting chair of the department of family and geriatric medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, to permanent status in that role.

Natalia Henao-Guerrero, associate professor of anesthesiology in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech, to interim head of the college’s department of small-animal clinical sciences.

Heather Luea, faculty member teaching financial accounting and managerial accounting at Trident University International, to chair of the finance, economics, and accounting department.

Heather Roberge, associate professor of architecture at the University of California at Los Angeles, to chair of the department of architecture and urban design.

Eric Vilain, director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children’s National Health System, to additional roles, as chair of the department of genomics and precision medicine and a professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and Children’s National Health System.

Charles R. Woods Jr., interim chair of the department of pediatrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, to permanent status in that role.

Other administrators

Appointments

Jeff Adams, associate provost for academic administration at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, to associate vice president and associate dean for undergraduate education at Pennsylvania State University at University Park.

Yolanda Avent, director for the office of multicultural student affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, to senior director of cultural and community centers at Virginia Tech.

Julia DeVoy, professor of psychology and education at Boston College, to associate dean of undergraduate students at the college’s Lynch School of Education.

Tracey E. George, professor of law at Vanderbilt University, to associate provost for faculty affairs.

Timothy P. Kurzweg, electrical and computer engineering professor at Drexel University, to vice provost for undergraduate education.

Joanna Lucio, associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and affiliated faculty with the university’s Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, to associate dean of academic affairs in the university’s College of Public Service and Community Solutions.

Ryan D. Mahoney, executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum, in New York, to executive director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University.

Stanley Maloy, dean of the College of Sciences at San Diego State University, to associate vice president for research and innovation at the university, effective January 1.

Lori Feld Oakley, president of the North American office of the advertising and branding agency McCann, to student-experience marketing director at the University of Utah.

Nicole H. Persley, associate professor and chair of the department of theater at the University of Kansas, to associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, effective January 1.

Steve Riffon, former U.S. Air Force captain and retired assistant director of financial aid at West Virginia University, to interim director for the university’s office of veterans affairs.

Joel Seligman, associate vice president and chief communications officer at the University of New Hampshire, to associate vice president for marketing and communications at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Sameer Sidh, director of CitiStat, a government accountability agency in Baltimore, to chief of staff at Towson University.

Sonya Smith, associate dean and director of diversity outreach for the undergraduate office of admission at Princeton University, to director of graduate admissions for the university’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

David Umphress, professor of engineering at Auburn University, to director of the Auburn Cyber Research Center.

Rolanda Ward, associate professor of social work at Niagara University, to faculty director of the university’s Rose Bente Lee Ostapenko Center for Race, Equality, and Mission.

Elizabeth Wilson, a professor of energy and environmental policy and law at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, to inaugural director of the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society and professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.

Faculty

Appointments

Alexandra Christina, the countess of Frederiksborg in Denmark and a member of philanthropic and corporate boards in Europe, to leader in residence of business and government at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business for the 2017-18 academic year.

James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to special lecturer on public policy at Howard University.

Anna Goslen, metadata librarian for Swarthmore College Libraries, to metadata librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Caroline Hughes, head of the division of peace studies and international development and professor of conflict resolution at the University of Bradford, in Britain, to professor of peace studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Erica Mumm, online instructor for Southern New Hampshire University, to clinical assistant professor in the School of Nursing at Quinnipiac University.

Andrew Murphy, professor of political science at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, to professor of ethics and democratic values at the University of Richmond.

Deaths

Kenneth Gros Louis, chancellor emeritus at Indiana University, died on October 20. He was 80. Mr. Gros Louis joined the university’s faculty in 1964, and went on to hold several administrative roles, including chancellor of the Bloomington campus and vice president for academic affairs for the university. He retired in 2001, but then returned three years later to serve as interim senior vice president and Bloomington chancellor, and then as university chancellor from 2006 to 2011, when he was awarded emeritus status.

Gordon A. Haaland, president of Gettysburg College from 1990 to 2004, died October 23. Prior to his appointment at Gettysburg College, he served as president at the University of New Hampshire. He was 77.

Carol L. Hanchette, 62, an associate professor of geography and geosciences at the University of Louisville, died from hypothermia during a hiking trip to Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming. Her body was found by a search-and-rescue team on October 10.

Larry Jackson, president of Lander University from 1973 to 1992, died on November 7. He was 92.

Joseph Leahy, a professor of biology at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, died of a heart attack on October 15. He was 58. Mr. Leahy had survived being shot by his colleague Amy Bishop during a faculty meeting in 2010; three other biology-department members were killed in that incident. After several surgeries, Mr. Leahy, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, returned to teaching and doing research.

James E. Longnecker, head coach of men’s swimming and diving at Grove City College from 1957 to 1997, died on September 16. He was 84. He guided the team to 40 consecutive winning seasons, including six in which it was undefeated.

The Rev. Donald P. McNeill, founding director of the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, died on August 24. He was 81.

David L. Wright, senior policy officer for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, died on August 23 of complications of myelodysplastic syndrome. He was 57.

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