Transitions: New President at Georgia Piedmont Technical College, Purdue U. Names New Communications Chief

Chief executives

Appointments

Regina Favors, president and chief executive of Pinnacle Business Solutions, a subsidiary of Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield, and a member of the board for Arkansas Baptist College, has been named interim president of the college. The previous president, Joseph L. Jones, was fired last December, and Howard O. Gibson served as interim leader. The college has been dealing with financial challenges.

Tavarez Holston, vice president for academic affairs at Lanier Technical College, became president of Georgia Piedmont Technical College on September 10. He took over from D. Glen Cannon, who is returning to the presidency of Gwinnett Technical College after serving as interim president of Georgia Piedmont since May.

George Nichols III, executive vice president for governmental affairs at New York Life, will become president and chief executive at American College of Financial Services on November 1. He will replace Todd M. Schoon, who has served as interim president since May.

Monica Torres, vice president for academic affairs at Doña Ana Community College, has been named interim president. She will replace Renay Scott, who became vice president for student success at New Mexico State University in August.

Jan Ziegler, adjunct faculty member and former vice president for development at Black River Technical College, has been named interim president of the college. She will replace Eric Turner, who left to become president of Southwest Baptist University.

Chief academic officers

Appointments

Jennifer Merlic, dean of instructional services at Santa Monica College, has been named vice president for academic affairs.

Amanda Thomas, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Loyola University Maryland since July 2017, has been named to the position permanently.

Greg Weiner, an associate professor of political science at Assumption College, will become provost in 2019.

Resignations

Michael R. Halleran, provost at the College of William & Mary, plans to step down at the end of the 2018-19 academic year and return to the classical-studies faculty.

Other top administrators

Appointments

Kathleen Byington, associate vice president for business operations at Yale University, will become senior vice president for finance and administration at Stony Brook University on October 3.

Lisa Frace, chief budget officer and associate vice president for budget and planning at Arizona State University, became chief finance and budget officer at the University of California at Davis on September 5.

Dan Hasler, chief entrepreneurial officer at the Purdue Research Foundation, has been named executive vice president for communication at Purdue University at West Lafayette.

Christine Lovely, vice president for human resources at California State University at Sacramento, will become chief human resources officer at the University of California at Davis and UC Davis Health on October 15.

Simon Nynens, former president of the information technology provider, Wayside Technology Group, became vice president for business incubation and executive director of commercialization at New Jersey Institute of Technology on September 4.

Jeffrey Lewis Williams, chief operating officer and senior vice president for finance and administration at Capitol Technology University, became vice president for finance and administration at Lourdes University on August 31.

Retirements

Roscoe Roberts, senior assistant attorney general and university counsel at the University of Virginia, retired at the end of August.

Deans

Appointments

Johnnie L. Early II, dean of the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Toledo, will become dean of the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Florida A&M University on October 22.

Michael D. Hogue, associate dean of the Center for Faith and Health at Samford University, will become dean of the School of Pharmacy at Loma Linda University on January 1.

Kevin Keathley, director of cloud delivery at the accounts-receivable software company, Ontario Systems, became dean of the School of Information Technology at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana on September 3.

Department chairs

Appointments

JoNataye Prather, an assistant professor and director of social work at Tarleton State University, has been named chair of the social work undergraduate program at Union Institute & University.

Other administrators

Appointments

Ben Chang, managing director in the U.S. Public Affairs and Crisis practice at Burson-Marsteller in Washington, D.C., will become university spokesperson and director of media relations at Princeton University on September 24.

Leah DeCosta, director of alumni relations at the New York University Stern School of Business, has been named associate vice president for alumni relations at Boston College.

El Hadji Djibril Diagne, a senior program associate for the department of alumni relations at Howard University, has been named associate director of alumni relations.

Richard J. Gelles, chair of child welfare and family violence at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named managing faculty director of the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice and Research in the School of Social Policy and Practice.

Kelvin F. King, a supervisory senior resident agent with the Montgomery office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Mobile, Ala. Division, will become executive director of the Department of Campus Safety and Security at Auburn University on October 1.

Leslie Kirby, principal senior lecturer in human and organizational development at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, has been named the college’s first director of immersion experiences.

Sharon Strange Lewis, director of Women and Diversity Programs at the University of Maryland at College Park, has been named director of alumni relations at Howard University.

Craig A. Smith, associate dean of undergraduate affairs and an associate professor of psychology and human development at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, has been named senior associate dean of the college.

Sharon Smith, director of student intervention services at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named the first associate vice provost for university life.

Steve Weisler, chief data officer and director of institutional analysis in Budget and Institutional Analysis at the University of California at Davis, has been named interim associate vice chancellor of enrollment management.

Faculty

Appointments

Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, a nonresident senior fellow and former director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and faculty member in Bard College’s Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York City, has been named the college’s first diplomat-in-residence in political studies.

Robert Reid-Pharr, a professor of English and American studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, became the first full professor in the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality program at Harvard University in July.

Awards

Teresa Amabile, a professor at the Harvard University Business School, has received the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management.

Deaths

Thad Lewis Beyle, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1967 to 2002, died on August 31. He was 84.

Shengpan Lin, an assistant professor with the Social Science Data Analytics Initiative at Michigan State University since 2017, died on September 2 after his car was struck by another vehicle. He was 37.

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