Transitions: Community College of Beaver County Names First African-American President, New Provost at U. of Georgia

Chief executives

Appointments

Roger W. Davis, interim president of the Community College of Beaver County since May, has been named to the post permanently. He is the college’s first African-American president.

Robert L. Jackson, interim president of Murray State University since August 2018, has been named to the post permanently.

Fred Wilson, chairman of the Board of Trustees at the University of Mobile, has been named interim president. He will replace Tim Smith, who resigned in February.

Resignations

Gail O. Mellow, president of City University of New York La Guardia Community College since 2000, says she will step down in August.

Retirements

Jay Barnes, president of Bethel University, in St. Paul, since 2008, plans to retire on June 30, 2020.

Timothy L. Smith, president of the University of Mobile since 2016, has resigned, citing personal reasons. The university’s Board of Trustees announced his departure, effective immediately, on February 26.

Chief academic officers

Appointments

Kathleen Boyle, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Saint Martin’s University since July, has been named to the post permanently.

Nancy W. Brickhouse, who was provost of Saint Louis University from 2015 to 2018, will become provost of Baylor University on May 1.

Hesham El-Rewini, dean of the College of Engineering and Mines at the University of North Dakota, has been named provost of Marymount University.

S. Jack Hu, vice president for research at the University of Michigan, will become senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Georgia on July 1.

Other top administrators

Appointments

Natasha Lipscomb, executive director of student success at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, has been named vice president for student success.

John Long, chief operating officer and senior vice president for business and finance at the University of South Florida, will become executive vice president and chief operating officer at the University of Delaware on March 11.

Medha Narvekar, senior associate vice president for development and alumni relations at the University of Pennsylvania, will become vice president and secretary of the university on July 1.

Richard T. Smith, vice president for corporate information technology at Elwyn, a human-services organization, in Media, Pa., has been named chief information officer at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Retirements

John Morton, vice president for community colleges at the University of Hawaii, plans to retire on June 1.

Deans

Appointments

Angela Bauer, chair of the department of biology at High Point University, has been named the first dean of the Wanek School of Undergraduate Sciences.

Kristine L. Blair, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and a professor of English at Youngstown State University, will become dean of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University on July 1.

Kathleen Harris, an associate professor of early-childhood education at Seton Hill University, has been named dean of the School of Education and Applied Sciences.

Bethany Nowviskie, a presidential fellow at the Council on Library and Information Resources and senior adviser to the Digital Library Federation, will become dean of libraries and educational technologies at James Madison University on July 1.

Steve Rodenborn, director of the honors program and chair of the department of religious and theological studies at St. Edward’s University, will become undergraduate dean at Salve Regina University on July 1.

Mark Stayton, associate professor emeritus of molecular biology at the University of Wyoming, has been named interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Stephanie A. Wilsey, a professor of psychology and interim dean of the College of Leadership and Social Change at Carlow University, will become dean on July 1.

Department chairs

Appointments

Brett Woods, an associate professor of biology at High Point University, has been named chair of the dpartment of biology.

Other administrators

Appointments

Kim C. Byas, a regional executive with the American Hospital Association, has been named director of the Master of Science in Health Care Leadership program at Union Institute & University.

Janice Branch Hall, assistant director for academic support and partnerships in the Haslam College of Business’ Office of Diversity and Community Relations at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, has been named the first director of diversity and inclusion at the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech.

Donna Kidwell, an adjunct professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, an associate professor at the University of Adger, and a former interim executive director of the Institute for Transformational Learning at the University of Texas system, has been named chief technology officer at EdPlus, a digital teaching and learning unit at Arizona State University.

Corina McKendry, associate professor of political science at Colorado College, has been named director of the college’s State of the Rockies Project.

Yasmin Rivera, director of the Fort Bragg office of Methodist University, has been named academic-success counselor at the Mercer University School of Medicine’s Macon campus.

Muriel Warren, assistant director of institutional research and assessment at Samford University, has been named director of accreditation at the Mercer University School of Medicine.

Deaths

Dominick Argento, composer and professor emeritus in the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities School of Music, died on February 20. He was 91. Argento was a faculty member at the university from 1958 to 1997. His compositions won many awards, including the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for his work “Casa Guidi,” performed by the Minnesota Orchestra with Frederica von Stade, and the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his song cycle “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf.”

Norman Itzkowitz, professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, died on Janurary 20. He was 87. Itzkowitz taught at Princeton for 42 years and was the head of the residential college Wilson College from 1975 to 1989. He wrote Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (Knopf, 1972), which became a standard book on Ottoman history, along with many other books and translations over his career.

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