Transitions: First Female President to Lead Elizabethtown College, Grinnell College Selects Chief Academic Officer

Chief executives

Appointments

Cheryl Green, vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, has been named interim chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. She will replace Beverly Kopper, who resigned in December.

Sean L. Huddleston, vice president for inclusion and equity at the University of Indianapolis, will become president of Martin University on March 25. He will succeed Eugene White, who plans to retire.

John Loyack, executive vice president for business and administration at King’s College, in Pennsylvania, will become president of Alvernia University on July 1. He will succeed Tom Flynn, who plans to step down after 14 years at the helm.

Daniel G. Lugo, vice president for college advancement at Colby College, has been named president of Queens University of Charlotte. He will succeed Pamela Davies, who plans to retire after having been at the helm for 17 years.

Kyle Marrero, president of the University of West Georgia, will become president of Georgia Southern University on April 1. He will replace Shelley C. Nickel, who has served as interim president since Jaimie Hebert stepped down.

Cecilia M. McCormick, vice provost for academic strategy and special programs at Thomas Jefferson University, will become the first female president of Elizabethtown College on July 1. She will succeed Carl J. Strikwerda, who plans to retire.

Andrew Rehfeld, president and chief executive of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and associate professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, will become president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on April 1. He will replace Rabbi David Ellenson, who has served as interim president since Rabbi Aaron Panken’s death in May.

Mary Beth Walker, associate provost for strategic initiatives and innovation at Georgia State University, has been named interim president of Georgia Gwinnett College. She will replace Stanley C. (Stas) Preczewski, who will become president of Riverside Military Academy.

Jason D. Warren, chief student affairs officer at Hopkinsville Community College, will become president of Henderson Community College on February 1.

Resignations

Carol L. Folt, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2013, said she planned to step down at the end of the academic year. At the same time, she authorized the removal of the base of the “Silent Sam” Confederate statue, which had remained on campus after the statue was toppled by protesters last August. The university system’s Board of Governors then voted to accept Folt’s resignation at an earlier date, January 31.

G.P. (Bud) Peterson, president of Georgia Institute of Technology since 2009, plans to step down at the end of the academic year.

Randall Wisbey, president of La Sierra University since 2007, plans to step down at the end of 2019.

Retirements

Cheryl Davenport Dozier, president of Savannah State University since 2011, plans to retire on June 30.

Chief academic officers

Appointments

Deena J. González, associate provost for faculty affairs and professor of Chicana/o studies at Loyola Marymount University, will become provost and senior vice president at Gonzaga University on June 1.

Anne F. Harris, a professor and vice president for academic affairs at DePauw University, will become vice president for academic affairs and dean of Grinnell College in July.

Kent Kleinman, a professor of architecture and Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University, will become provost of Rhode Island School of Design in March.

Retirements

William J. Seaton, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Thomas Edison State University, plans to retire later this month

Other top administrators

Appointments

Noelle Chaddock, associate provost and deputy Title IX coordinator at Rhodes College, will become vice president for equity and inclusion at Bates College on June 1.

Lisa Custardo, chief financial officer at Alliance for a Healthier Generation, in New York City, will become vice president for finance and chief financial officer at Rockford University on February 4.

Richard (Rick) J. Gatteau, interim vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Stony Brook University, has been named to the post permanently.

Yolanda Barbier Gibson, associate dean of first-year experience at Marymount University, will become vice president for student success at Shenandoah University on July 1.

Curtis J. Kowaleski, director of finance at St. Norbert College, will become vice president for finance, treasurer, and chief financial officer at Gustavus Adolphus College on February 4.

Brett I. Last, executive director of human resources and interim Title IX coordinator at Northampton Community College, will become chief human resources officer at Skidmore College on February 25.

Robert Morreale, chief financial officer and vice president for human resources at Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd., has been named chief financial and innovation officer at Niagara University.

James Russell, chief information officer, as an Ellucian-contracted employee, at Manhattanville College, has been named chief information officer and vice president for digital strategy in the president’s cabinet.

Laura Severin, dean of admission and financial aid for Yale-NUS College, will become vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and student aid at Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, on May 1.

Scott Spriggs, chief marketing and creative officer at Shenandoah University, will become vice president for recruitment and chief creative officer on June 1.

Bryan Terry, vice chancellor for enrollment management at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has been named the first vice chancellor for enrollment management at Arkansas State University.

Gabriel Welsch, vice president for strategic communication and marketing at Juniata College, will become vice president for marketing and communications at Duquesne University on March 18.

Retirements

Jinx Walton, chief information officer at the University of Pittsburgh, plans to retire in early February.

Deans

Appointments

G. Marcus Cole, a professor of law at Stanford University, has been named dean of the Law School and a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.

Jill Creighton, assistant dean of students for conduct and operations at the University of Oregon, will become associate vice president and dean of students at Washington State University on February 26.

Anne P. Massey, professor and chair of business at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has been named dean of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Carl Mattacola, associate dean of academic and faculty affairs in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky, will become dean of the School of Health and Human Sciences at University of North Carolina at Greensboro on June 1.

Rachel Schreiber, associate professor and former dean and vice president for academic affairs at San Francisco Art Institute, will become executive dean of the New School’s Parsons School of Design on July 1.

Ann Huff Stevens, deputy director of the Center for Poverty Research and a professor of economics at the University of California at Davis, will become dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin on July 15.

Lisa Tyson, director of the College of Adult and Graduate Studies at Evangel University, has been named the first dean of the college.

Michelle D. Young, a professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Virginia and executive director of the University Council for Educational Administration, will become dean of the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University on June 1, 2020.

Other administrators

Appointments

Lena Q. Bailey, director of admissions at Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, became assistant dean of admissions and financial aid at Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School on January 2.

Megan R. Sanders Ellis, administrative director of the Woltemade Center for Economics, Business and Entrepreneurship at Ohio Wesleyan University, has been named executive director of the new Career Connection Center.

Col. Charles (Joe) Herring, interim chief of the Towson University Police Department, has been named to the post permanently.

Katherine Johnson, vice president for communications at the New York Philharmonic, has been named director of media relations and communications at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Madhavi Kadakia, professor and chair of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at Wright State University, became associate dean of research affairs at the Boonshoft School of Medicine on January 1.

Urban Meyer, head football coach at Ohio State University, will become an assistant athletic director after he retires as coach.

Jennifer Poulakidas, vice president for Congressional and governmental affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, has been named associate vice chancellor for government and community relations at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Varun Rai, an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, became director of the Energy Institute on January 1.

Ann Schmiesing, dean of the Graduate School at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been named senior vice provost for academic resource management.

Julie Smith, assistant to the chancellor for external affairs at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, has been named assistant vice chancellor in the Office of External Affairs, Partnerships and Economic Development at North Carolina State University.

Chevon Thorpe, an assistant professor in the Edward Via School of Osteopathic Medicine, has been named director of inclusion, diversity, and equity in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Resignations

Cliff Thornton, associate dean of admission at Wesleyan University, plans to step down at the end of the academic year.

Retirements

Michael E. Mills, associate provost for university enrollment at Northwestern University, will retire in April.

Organizations and Agencies

Appointments

Kate O’Neill, special assistant to the chief executive and former chief executive at the University of New Mexico at Taos, has been named head of New Mexico’s Higher Education Department.

Ben Wildavsky, a former senior fellow and executive director of the College Board Policy Center and former director of higher-education studies for the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York, has been named senior vice president for national engagement at Strada Education Network.

Deaths

Susan West Marmagas, director of the master-of-public-health program and associate professor of practice in population health sciences at Virginia Tech, died on December 23. She was 51.

Elias Menachem Stein, professor emeritus of mathematics at Princeton University, died on December 23. He was 87. Stein arrived at Princeton in 1963 and remained in the mathematics department until his retirement in 2012. He received a 2001 President’s National Medal of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science and wrote several books, including Singular Integrals and Differentiability Properties of Functions (Princeton University Press, 1970).

Mary Ellen Walsh, professor emerita of English at Idaho State University, died on December 2. She was 78.

Thomas Kent Wetherell, president emeritus of Florida State University, died on December 16. He was 72. Wetherell was president from 2003 to 2010, and was the first alumnus to lead the university. During his tenure, the College of Medicine graduated its first class and the Seminole Tribe of Florida approved a resolution supporting the university’s use of the Seminole name.

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