Transitions: New President of Berklee College of Music; Drexel U. Names Interim Leader

CHIEF EXECUTIVES
Appointments
Abiódún (G-P) Gòkè-Pariolá, provost and vice president for academic affairs at North Central College, in Illinois, has been named president.

Susan Kazama, interim chancellor of Hawaii Community College, has been named to the post permanently.

Jim Lucchese, chief executive of Sofar Sounds, has been named president of Berklee College of Music, in Massachusetts.

Richard L. McCormick, president emeritus at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, has been named interim president of Stony Brook University of the State University of New York.

Denis P. O’Brien, a member of Drexel University’s Board of Trustees, has been named interim president of the university following John A. Fry’s appointment as president of Temple University, in Pennsylvania.

Maria A. Pharr, president of South Piedmont Community College, has been named president of Pitt Community College, in North Carolina.

Garrett Thompson, vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer at Sonoran University of Health Sciences, in Arizona, has been named president of Logan University, in Missouri.

Resignations
Stephen D. Easton, president of Dickinson State University, in North Dakota, has resigned following a backlash to his cost-cutting policies, including the resignation of the entire full-time nursing faculty.

Tom Jackson Jr., president of California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt, will step down in August.

Larry Robinson, president of Florida A&M University, plans to step down.

Ben Sasse, president of the University of Florida since 2022, plans to step down to spend more time with his family.

Retirements
Donald Bobbitt, president of the University of Arkansas system, plans to retire by January.

Mary Lou Retelle, president of Anna Maria College, in Massachusetts, plans to retire at the end of the 2024-25 academic year.

David A. Thomas, president of Morehouse College, in Georgia, will retire after the 2024-25 academic year.

Randy Woodson, chancellor of North Carolina State University, plans to retire in June 2025.

CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICERS
Appointments
Bindhu Alappat, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Sciences at Saint Catherine University, in Minnesota, has been named vice president for academic affairs at Holy Family University, in Pennsylvania.

Sonja Feist-Price, a professor in the department of education and former provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Michigan at Flint, has been named provost and senior vice president for academic and student affairs at Chicago State University.

Lewis P. Graham, interim academic dean at Morris College, in South Carolina, has been named chief academic-affairs officer of the college.

Nicole S. Sampson, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Rochester, in New York, has been named interim provost.

Bradley Thiessen, vice provost at New College of Florida, has been named interim vice president and provost at Florida Polytechnic University.

OTHER TOP ADMINISTRATORS
Appointments
Kate Azizi, vice president for institutional advancement at the Medical University South Carolina, has been named president of the OHSU Foundation at Oregon Health and Science University.

Edwin Craft, associate vice president for finance and administration and chief information officer at Delta State University, in Mississippi, has been named vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer.

Randall Deike, former senior vice president for enrollment management and student success at Drexel University and founder of a higher-education consulting firm, Deike and Associates LLC, has been named vice president for enrollment management at Cleveland State University, in Ohio.

John Haller, vice president for enrollment management and new student strategies at the University of Miami, in Florida, has been named vice president for enrollment management at Denison University, in Ohio.

Gilbert Hinga, with recent work at the Registry for College and University Presidents, in Massachusetts, has been named vice president for student engagement and dean of students at Warren Wilson College, in North Carolina.

Peter Lange, interim chief operating officer at Texas A&M University at College Station, has been named chief operating officer and senior vice president.

Alissa Mahar, associate vice president for strategy and operations in the information-technology division at the University of Washington, has been named vice president for business and finance at Seattle Pacific University.

Jennifer O’Connor, vice president for technology and information law and policy at Northrop Grumman, has been named vice president and general counsel at Harvard University.

Jacob Rissler, director of institutional advancement at Mid-Plains Community College, in Nebraska, has been named vice president for advancement at Adams State University, in Colorado.

Robert Swerdlow, interim deputy campus counsel at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been named vice chancellor for legal affairs and chief campus counsel.

Brian Troyer, associate vice provost for enrollment management and dean of undergraduate admission at Marquette University, in Wisconsin, has been named vice president for enrollment management.

Retirements
Jennifer L. Frum, vice president for public service and outreach at the University of Georgia, will retire in December.

Brian K. Lee, vice president for alumni affairs and development at Harvard University, will retire at the end of the year.

DEANS
Appointments
Keena Arbuthnot, vice president and chief data officer at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, has been named dean of the Pinkie Gordon Lane Graduate School.

Regan Crotty, an assistant general counsel at the firm Morgan Lewis and former director of gender equity and Title IX administration at Princeton University, has been named dean of undergraduate students at Princeton.

W. Brooke Elliott, executive associate dean of academic programs in the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been named dean of the college.

Omolola (Lola) Eniola-Adefeso, a professor of chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and macromolecular science and engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has been named dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Carl Frick, former head of the department of mechanical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, has been named dean of graduate studies.

Jaishankar Ganesh, former dean of Rutgers University’s School of Business in Camden, N.J., has been named dean of the School of Management at the New York Institute of Technology.

Ofer Harel has been named dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut, after serving as interim dean since July 2023.

Lenora Helm Hammonds, a professor in the music department and jazz-studies program at North Carolina Central University, has been named dean of the professional-education division at Berklee College of Music, in Massachusetts.

Matthew Hincman, a professor of sculpture at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, has been named dean of the faculty.

Tim McLaughlin has been named dean of the School of Performance, Visualization, and Fine Arts at Texas A&M University at College Station, after serving as interim dean since September 2022.

Cynthia Mejia has been named dean of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, after serving as interim dean since October 2023.

Joshua Park, dean of SolBridge International School of Business, in South Korea, has been named dean of George Mason University’s Mason Korea campus.

Stanley Robertson, associate dean of clinical relations at the University of Arizona’s College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named the first permanent dean of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Jonathan Strom, a professor of church history at Emory University, in Georgia, has been named dean of its Candler School of Theology.

Neville Vakharia, associate dean of research and planning and an associate professor of arts administration and museum leadership at Drexel University, in Pennsylvania, has been named dean of the university’s Pennoni Honors College.

Charles Yingling, a clinical professor and associate dean of professional practice in the School of Nursing at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has been named dean of the Orvis School of Nursing at the University of Nevada at Reno.

OTHER ADMINISTRATORS
Appointments
Catharine Baker, a former member of the California State Assembly for the 16th Assembly District, has been named director of the University of California system’s Student and Policy Center.

Melissa Choi, assistant director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, has been named director of the laboratory.

Fiona Coffey, associate director and curator for performing arts at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, has been named director of the Office for the Arts at Harvard University.

Jay Lillywhite, a professor in the department of agricultural economics and agricultural business at New Mexico State University, has been named associate dean and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station in its College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences.

Michael Minetti, director of student and young-alumni engagement at Temple University, has been named assistant vice president for university advancement at Gwynedd Mercy University, in Pennsylvania.

Dacia Read, vice president for strategic government growth at Unite Us, a technology company for health and social-service providers, has been named chief of staff to the president of Brown University.

ORGANIZATIONS
Appointments
Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, chancellor of the City University of New York, has been named chair of the American Council on Education’s Board of Directors, in Washington, D.C.

Andrew Siclari, an adjunct professor in the College of Professional Studies at George Washington University and a former chief financial and operations adviser at the University of Massachusetts’ UMass Online and UMass Global, has been named chief financial officer at the National Student Clearinghouse, in Virginia.

L. Angela Webb, associate vice president for campus safety at Rhodes College, in Tennessee, has been named president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.

DEATHS
Robert L. Allen, a professor emeritus of ethnic studies and African American studies at the University of California at Berkeley, died on July 10. He was 82. His 1989 book, The Port Chicago Mutiny: The Story of the Largest Mass Mutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History, told the story of Black sailors who were exonerated only a week after his death.

William E. Burrows, a professor emeritus of journalism and founder of the master’s program in science, health, and environmental reporting at New York University, died on June 29. He was 87.

Frank Kilgore, founder of the Appalachian College of Pharmacy, in Virginia, died on July 14.

Brenda Kirby, a former assistant to the chancellor and secretary at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died on July 2. She was 79.

Peter Mora, who served as president of Atlantic Cape Community College, in New Jersey, from 2005 to 2016, died on June 30. He was 81.

Thomas Neff, a physicist who led the program in international energy studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died on July 11. He was 80. Neff engineered a post-Cold War deal that saw the United States buy Soviet nuclear arms to convert into electricity.

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