Appointments, Resignations, Deaths (3/2/2018)

Chief executives

Appointments

Richard Feldman, professor of philosophy and former dean of the college, will serve as interim president of the University of Rochester. He will replace Joel Seligman, who plans to step down this week.

Paul C. Hutchins, president of Sampson Community College, will become president of Martin Community College on March 1. Kenneth A. Boham has been serving as interim president since February 1, 2017. The previous president, Ann Britt, retired after a negative state audit of the institution.

Susan D. Looney, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of Reading Area Community College, will become the college’s president on July 1. She will succeed Anna D. Weitz, who will retire on June 30.

Ronald A. Matthews, executive director of the Fine and Performing Arts Division and chair of the music department at Eastern University, becomes the university’s president on March 1. He succeeds Robert G. Duffett, who is stepping down this week after having been at the helm since 2013.

Michael Molla, vice president for strategic initiatives at Maryland Institute College of Art, will become president of the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design on July 1. He will succeed Mary Colleen Heil, who plans to retire after 25 years at the helm.

Kirk Nooks, president of Metropolitan Community College’s Longview campus, in Missouri, since 2013, will become president of Gordon State College, in Georgia, on June 1. He will succeed Max Burns, who retired on December 31. Stuart Rayfield is serving as interim president.

The Rev. Stephen G. Ray Jr., who was a professor of systematic theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, became president of Chicago Theological Seminary in February. He succeeded the Rev. Alice Hunt, who retired.

Michael Thomson, president of Cuyahoga Community College’s Eastern Campus since 2013, will be the next president of Northwest State Community College. He will succeed Thomas Stuckey, who plans to retire on June 30.

Other top administrators

Appointments

Traevena Byrd, vice president for legal affairs and human resources and general counsel at Towson University, to vice president and general counsel of American University, effective April 9.

Dana S. Cummings, associate vice president for development at DePauw University, to vice president for development and alumni engagement at Franklin College of Indiana.

Melissa Graham, business consultant, to interim vice president for finance and chief financial officer at Brevard College.

Daniel Klingensmith, chair of the Division of Humanities and professor of history at Maryville College, to interim vice president and dean there, effective July 9.

Susan LaPanne, associate commissioner for higher-education finance and management for the Rhode Island Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, to vice president for finance and administration at Keene State College, in New Hampshire.

Katie Longley, associate vice president for finance at Abilene Christian University, in Texas, to vice president for finance and administration at Elms College, effective March 26.

Rhonda Mohr, interim vice chancellor for student services and special programs at California Community Colleges, to permanent status.

Meshea Poore, a lawyer in private practice in Charleston, W.Va., to vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at West Virginia University.

Jill Salyers, Tri-Cities field director in the office of U.S. Senator Bob Corker, to vice president for institutional advancement at Tusculum College.

Linda Shinomoto, former director of employment and employee relations and Title IX coordinator at Brandeis University, to vice president for human resources at Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Deans

Appointments

Steve Albanese, interim dean of Manhattanville College’s School of Business, to permanent status.

Andrea Amalfitano, director of the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute at Michigan State University, to interim dean of the university’s College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Sudha N. Setty, professor of law and associate dean of faculty development and intellectual life at Western New England University, to dean of the School of Law on July 1.

Laura Severin, director of admissions and financial aid at Yale-NUS College, to the college’s dean of admissions and financial aid.

L. Joseph Thomas, professor emeritus of operations, technology, and information management, and dean emeritus in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, to interim dean of the university’s S.C. Johnson College of Business.

Amitabh Varshney, director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, to dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Resignations

Eric J. Gouvin, dean of the School of Law at Western New England University since 2013, will step down in June and return to the faculty.

Other administrators

Appointments

Candice Benjes-Smallhead, head of information literacy and outreach at Radford University, to head of research services at College of William & Mary Libraries.

Michael Butterfield, retired chief petty officer of the U.S. Navy who retired last May, to regional manager of strategic and community relations for Trident University International.

Darla Cuadra, director of the Alameda, Calif., campus of Columbia College, in Missouri, to director of the Tracy, Calif., campus of Notre Dame de Namur University.

Frank Friedenberg, professor of medicine and interim chief of the section of gastroenterology at Temple University Hospital and at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, to permanent status.

Bethany Godsoe, associate vice president for student leadership initiatives at New York University, to an additional role as associate vice president for career and leadership development.

Liping Huang, professor of materials science and engineering, to associate dean for research and graduate programs in the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Karl Kirchwey, professor of English and creative writing and interim dean of the faculty for the humanities in the College of Arts & Sciences at Boston University, to associate dean of the faculty for the humanities in the college.

Lee Ligon, associate professor of biological sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Science at Rensselaer.

Myranda Nash, associate athletic director and senior woman’s administrator at Winona State University, to director of athletics for the Tornados at Brevard College, effective July 1.

Deborah Novick, management consultant, to director of the BioInc@NYMC biotechnology incubator at New York Medical College, part of the Touro College and University system.

Dean X. Parmelee, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics in the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University, to director of educational scholarship and program development in the school’s Office of Medical Education.

Rosalee Rush, assistant vice president for marketing and communications at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, to senior associate vice president for marketing, communications and media relations at California State University-Stanislaus, effective last July.

Resignations

Bruce Parker, director of athletics at Rocky Mountain College since 2014, is stepping down from that role because of health issues and will be a consultant to the college.

Retirements

Lawrence Gibbs, associate vice provost for environmental health and safety at Stanford University since 1992, says he plans to retire in June.

Agencies and organizations

Appointments

Elizabeth Alexander, a professor in the humanities in the department of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and a poet and writer, will become president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in March. She will succeed Earl Lewis, who has led the foundation since 2013.

Frank T. Brogan, acting principal deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development in the U.S. Department of Education who retired as chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education in September, has been delegated the duties of assistant secretary of postsecondary education, in addition to his other role at the agency. He is awaiting Senate confirmation.

Gregory Schuckman, assistant vice president for university relations and director of federal relations at the University of Central Florida, was appointed by Gov. Larry Hogan to serve on the Education Commission of the States as a commissioner from Maryland. This is his second time on the commission, which offers resources and expertise to education-policy leaders. He served as a commissioner from Virginia from 2008 to 2010.

Kathleen Smith, acting assistant secretary of the Office of Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education, has been named deputy chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid.

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, dean of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been appointed an academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope Francis.

Resignations

Darrell G. Kirch, president and chief executive of the Association of American Medical Colleges since 2006, says he will step down from his role on June 30, 2019.

Awards

Student-advocate award

The following 10 people were named recipients of the 2018 Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award, given by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina and the publishing company Cengage Learning.

Courtney Bringley, director of the Academic Success Center at Paul Smith’s College

Tim Cairy, director of student success and retention at Widener University

Christopher Francisco, associate professor of mathematics and associate head of Lower Division Instruction at Oklahoma State University at Stillwater

Lynn Gillette, special assistant to the president and former provost and vice president for academic affairs at Nicholls State University

Ernest E. Jeffries, associate dean of students at Davidson College

Amber Morgan, director of training and development and former director of the first-year-experience program at Greenville Technical College

Paz Oliverez, associate vice president for student success at California State University-Dominguez Hills

Joanne Pedersen, director of first-year programs at California State University at San Marcos

David Rizzo, professor of plant pathology at the University of California at Davis

Jennie Towner, director of student success at Harford Community College

Teaching award

Neil K. Garg, a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been named the 2018 recipient of the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. The award, from Baylor University, carries a $250,000 cash prize to the recipient and an additional $25,000 for the chemistry and biochemistry department at UCLA. Garg is expected to teach in residence at Baylor in spring of 2019.

Deaths

Maurice Cecil Mackey Jr., who led three major public universities during the 20th century, died on February 8 at age 89. He was president of the University of South Florida from 1971 to 1976, of Texas Tech University from 1976 to 1979, and of Michigan State University from 1979 to 1985. Earlier in his career, he held posts in the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Transportation.

Donald Rosenfield, longtime director of the Leaders for Global Operations program and a senior lecturer in the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died on January 14 following an accident. He was 70. He led the program, in which students earn an M.B.A. and a master’s degree in engineering, from 1988 to 2014.

Victor W. Sidel, a medical doctor and professor who raised public-health concerns about the use of nuclear weapons, died on January 30 in Colorado. He was 86. Sidel was a founding member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization devoted to the prevention of nuclear war. He was chair of the department of social medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine for 16 years and was a professor of social medicine there as well as an adjunct professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, now known as Weill Cornell Medicine.