Transitions: New President at Judson College, Auburn U. Names New Research Chief

Chief executives

Appointments

Dennis Bailey-Fougnier, former vice president for community-college affairs at Colorado Mesa University, will become president of Blue Mountain Community College on May 1.

Alison Bell, director of degree completion at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, has been named chancellor of Western Governors University-Indiana. She will succeed Allison Barber, who left to become president of WGU Advancement.

Matthew Giordano, interim president at Villa Maria College of Buffalo since Sister Marcella Marie Garus’s retirement in June 2018, has been named to the post permanently. He is the first male layperson to lead the college.

Kimberlee Messina, interim vice president for instruction at Clovis Community College, will become president of Spokane Falls Community College in June. She will succeed Janet Gullickson, who left in 2017 to become president of Germanna Community College. Nancy Fair-Szofran has been acting president for the past year.

W. Mark Tew, provost and chief academic officer at Howard Payne University, will become president of Judson College, in Alabama, on March 25. He will replace Scott Bullard, who has served as interim president since last year. The previous president, David E. Potts, was named chancellor shortly before his death in March 2018.

Felix Theonugraha, vice president for student life and university services at Trinity International University, will become president of Western Theological Seminary on July 1. He will succeed Timothy Brown, who plans to retire from the presidency and return to the faculty.

Mark A. Thompson, executive vice president and provost at Quinnipiac University, will become president of Wentworth Institute of Technology on June 1. He will succeed Zorica Pantic, who plans to step down.

Frances L. White, former superintendent and president of the College of Marin, has been named acting chancellor of the Peralta Community College District. She will replace Jowel C. Laguerre, who retired this month.

Heather Wilson, secretary of the U.S. Air Force and former president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, is the sole finalist for president of the University of Texas at El Paso. She is expected to succeed Diana Natalicio, who plans to retire after more than 30 years at the helm.

Resignations

Peggy Bradford, president of Shawnee Community College since 2017, plans to step down in June. She will serve as a liaison between the college and the community and lawmakers during the final year of her three-year contract.

Retirements

John Short, president of the University of Maine at Fort Kent since 2016, plans to retire on June 30.

Mark Tierno, president of MacMurray College since 2015, plans to retire on July 1.

Chief academic officers

Appointments

David Baron, vice president for clinical and external relations at Western University of Health Sciences, will become senior vice president and provost on July 1.

Montserrat (Montse) Fuentes, dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University, will become executive vice president and provost at the University of Iowa on June 28.

Leamor Kahanov, dean of the College of Health Sciences and Education at Misericordia University, will become provost at State University of New York College at Oneonta on July 8.

Simon Rhodes, dean of science at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, will become provost and vice president of academic affairs at the University of North Florida on June 30.

Other top administrators

Appointments

Kimberly Hokanson, associate vice president and interim co-vice president for resources in the development office at Wellesley College, has been named vice president for institutional advancement at Regis College.

James Weyhenmeyer, vice president for research and economic development and chair of the Research Foundation board of directors at Georgia State University, will become vice president for research at Auburn University on April 1.

Deans

Appointments

William Block, interim dean of the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University, has been named to the post permanently.

Kenneth Burhanna, interim dean of university libraries at Kent State University, has been named to the post permanently.

Michael L. Capella, associate dean of graduate and executive programs and a professor of marketing in the School of Business at Villanova University, will become dean of the Joseph A. Butt, S.J., College of Business at Loyola University New Orleans on June 1.

Kerwin Charles, professor and former interim dean of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, will become dean of the School of Management at Yale University on July 1.

Claire Garcia, a professor of English at Colorado College, will become dean of the faculty on July 1.

Sherri Jones, professor and chair of the department of special education and communication disorders at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, will become dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences on July 1.

Branko Kolarevic, professor and co-director the computational media design program at the University of Calgary, in Canada, will become dean of the College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology on July 1.

Kasi Lacey, interim dean of student life at Westminster College, in Missouri, has been named to the post permanently.

Clarence Lang, interim dean of the College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas, will become dean of the College of the Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University at University Park on July 1.

Antonio Merlo, dean of the School of Social Sciences and director of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics at Rice University, will become dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at New York University this summer.

Carol Anne Murdoch-Kinch, associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Dentistry at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, will become the first female dean of the Indiana University School of Dentistry at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis on July 1.

Ivan Pulinkala, interim dean of the College of the Arts at Kennesaw State University, has been named to the post permanently.

Noam Wasserman, a professor of clinical entrepreneurship and founding director of the Founder Central Initiative at the University of Southern California, will become dean of the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University in May.

Resignations

Cynthia Newman, dean of the College of Business at Rider University, plans to resign on August 31 in response to its removal of Chick-fil-A from a list of potential campus restaurants. She said Rider’s decision to not consider the restaurant, known for its owner’s opposition to same-sex marriage, showed “hostility to Christian values.”

Department chairs

Appointments

Rohan Jeyarajah, director of Gastrointestinal Surgical Services at Methodist Richardson Medical Center and direcor of the Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery Fellowship program at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, has been named the first academic chair of surgery at the Texas Christian University and University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Medicine.

Other administrators

Appointments

Christy Bratcher, director of the Food Systems Institute and a professor of animal sciences at Auburn University, will become associate dean of research in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Texas Tech University in June.

Robert Chambers, legislative director for Massachusetts’ House Committee on Ways and Means, has been named associate vice president of community and government relations at Berklee College of Music.

William T. Dauer, a professor of neurology, director of the movement-disorders group, and director of the Udall Center of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease Research at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, will become the first director of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas on July 1.

Leslie Duinink, interim registrar since July 2018 at Central College, has been named to the post permanently.

Kevin Granger, interim vice president of intercollegiate athletics at Texas Southern University, has been named to the post permanently.

Howard Grimes, interim dean of the College of Sciences at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has been named the university’s associate vice president and associate vice provost for institutional initiatives.

Chad Lennon, intelligence officer at 4th Reconnaissance Battalion of the Marine Corps Reserves, has been named director of the Veterans’ and Servicemembers’ Rights Clinic at the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.

Paul Lipton, a professor of neuroscience, psychological and brain sciences, and biology and director of the undergraduate program in neuroscience at Boston University, will become associate dean of undergraduate education in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University on July 1.

David C. Martin, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Delaware, became associate dean of research and entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering on February 1.

Michael D. Page, director of campus ministries at North Carolina Central University, became director of external affairs on February 18.

Bobby Phills, who resigned in February as chancellor of the Agricultural Research and Extension Center and dean of the College of Agriculture at Southern University, will return in “a tenured administrative position” in the fall.

Laura Schmidt, strategic advisor to the superintendent of the School District of New Berlin, in Wisconsin, has been named director of corporate relations at Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Kendra Sharp, a professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State University, has been named senior adviser to the provost for international affairs.

Resignations

Linda Bray Chanow, executive director of the Center for Women in Law at the University of Texas at Austin, resigned on March 8.

Keith Morris, chief of police operations for Pennsylvania State University at University Park, stepped down on February 28.

Awards

Pauletta Brown Bracy, a professor of library science and director of the Office of University Accreditation at North Carolina Central University, received the 2019 Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Library Association for her dedication to promoting African-American books for children and young adults.

Paul Gilroy, a professor of American and English literature at King’s College London, is the 2019 Laureate of the Holberg Prize, given in recognition of his influence in the fields of cultural studies, critical race studies, sociology, history, anthropology and African-American studies. The government of Norway funds the prize, which this year carries an award of nearly $700,000.

Suzanne O’Handley, an associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology, will receive the 2019 CUR-Goldwater Scholars Faculty Mentor Award, presented by the Council on Undergraduate Research and the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation Program. The award includes $5,000 for the recipient’s research program and/or undergraduate researchers.

Organizations and Agencies

Appointments

S.P. Kothari, a professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been named chief economist and director of the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

John Palfrey, a director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and head of school for Phillips Academy Andover, a boarding school in Massachusetts, will become president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which sponsors the MacArthur Fellows program, on September 1.

Deaths

Peter J. Awn, dean emeritus of the School of General Studies at Columbia University, died on February 17 after being hit by a car near campus on January 25. Awn was dean of the school from 1997 to 2017.

Wallace Broecker, a professor and researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, died on February 18. He was 87. Broecker was credited with coining the phrase “global warming” in the 1970s, as one of the first scientists to predict the human-caused rise in the earth’s temperature. He joined the Columbia faculty in 1959, and went on to receive the President’s National Medal of Science in 1996 for his work on ocean circulation and global climate change.

Barbara (Gail) House, former assistant dean of the College of Home Economics at Texas Tech University, died on February 25. She was 82.

Cherie R. Perlmutter, former associate vice president of the Academic Health Center at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, died on February 23. She was 79. Perlmutter worked in the health center and the university’s medical center from 1973 to 2004.

John Petruska, a professor of molecular and computational biology at the University of Southern California since 1996, died recently. Petruska arrived at the university in 1969 as an associate professor.

William C. Powers Jr., president of the University of Texas at Austin from 2006 to 2015, died on March 10. He was 72. Powers joined the law faculty of the university in 1977 and later served as dean of the School of Law for six years. As president, he oversaw the establishment of the School of Undergraduate Studies and the Dell Medical School.

Henry (Hank) B. Reiling, professor emeritus of business administration at Harvard University, died on January 21. He was 80 years old. Reiling was a professor at Columbia University before he joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School in 1976.

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