Transitions: U. of Rochester Selects Its First Female President, Louisiana State U. Names Provost

Chief executives

Appointments

Kelli J. Armstrong, vice president for planning and assessment at Boston College, will become the first lay president of Salve Regina University in July. She will succeed Jane Gerety, a Religious Sister of Mercy, who plans to retire.

Rachel M. Desmarais, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Forsyth Technical Community College, will become president of Vance-Granville Community College on January 28. She will replace Gordon Burns, who has served as interim leader since Stelfanie Williams left in August to become the vice president for Durham affairs at Duke University.

Patrick F. Leahy, president of Wilkes University since 2012, will become president of Monmouth University on August 1. He will succeed Grey J. Dimenna, who plans to step down after less than two and a half years at the helm.

Sarah C. Mangelsdorf, provost at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, will become president of the University of Rochester in the summer. She will replace Richard Feldman, who became interim president when Joel Seligman stepped down in February. She will be the university’s first female leader.

Scott Ralls, president of Northern Virginia Community College since 2015, will become president of Wake Technical Community College in May. He will replace Bill Aiken, who has served as interim president since Stephen Scott retired in August.

Rosalind Reichard, former president of Emory & Henry College and a member of the Board of Trustees at Centenary University, became interim president of Centenary on January 1. She replaced David P. Haney, who announced his resignation in October.

Resignations

Marsha Krotseng, president of Bluefield State College since 2012, plans to step down and serve as a special adviser to the chairman of the board through August. She is the college’s first female president. Ted Lewis, provost, will serve as acting president.

Maria Thompson, president of Coppin State University since 2015, plans to step down at the end of the academic year.

Chief academic officers

Appointments

Cyril Clarke, interim executive vice president and provost at Virginia Tech, has been named to the post permanently.

William J. Ehmann, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Marymount University, will become provost and vice president for academic affairs at Hartwick College on July 1.

Stacia Haynie, interim executive vice president and provost at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge since April, has been named to the post permanently.

Karen Olmstead, interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Salisbury University, has been named to the post permanently.

Davis Schneiderman, interim provost and dean of the faculty at Lake Forest College, has been named to the post permenently.

Other top administrators

Appointments

Ainsley Carry, vice president for student affairs at the University of Southern California, will become vice president for students at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus on April 1.

Kristen R. DeVries, vice president for university advancement at Lawrence Technological University, became vice president for development and alumni relations and executive director of the WMU Foundation at Western Michigan University on January 2.

Steve Goldstein, dean and chief diversity officer in the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago, will become vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of California at Irvine on February 1.

Mark Stacy, interim vice chancellor for health sciences at East Carolina University, has been named to the post permanently. He will continue to serve as dean of the medical school and senior associate vice chancellor for medical affairs, in addition to his new role.

Meredith Twombly, former dean of enrollment and retention at Hampshire College, became vice president for admissions and financial aid at Clark University last year.

Deans

Appointments

Timothy Beal, a professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, became interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences after Cyrus Taylor stepped down and returned to the faculty.

Dave Brat, most recently congressman of Virginia’s 7th District and former chair of the economics and business department at Randolph-Macon College, has been named dean of the School of Business at Liberty University.

Michael E. Busing, interim dean of the College of Business at James Madison University, was named to the post permanently on January 2.

Kimberly Mutcherson, vice dean and a professor at the Rutgers University at Camden Law School, has been named co-dean. She is the first female, African-American, and LGBT law dean at Rutgers.

Deaths

The Rev. Charles L. Currie, president of Wheeling Jesuit University from 1972 to 1982, died on January 4. He was 88. Currie also served as president of Xavier University from 1982 to 1985 and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities from 1997 to 2011.

Eleanor Maccoby, professor emerita of psychology at Stanford University, died on December 11. She was 101. Maccomby is known for her contributions to gender studies and child and family psychology, including The Psychology of Sex Differences (1974), which she co-authored with Carol Jacklin. She arrived at the university in 1958 and went on to become the first woman to serve as chair of Stanford’s department of psychology, a position she held from 1973 to 1976.

Rita S. Purdy, former chair and professor emerita of family and consumer sciences at Baylor University, died on November 24. She was 77. Purdy was a professor and dean of undergraduate programs for the College of Human Resources at Virginia Tech before arriving at Baylor in 1996, where she was chair and professor of family and consumer sciences until her retirement in 2009.

Bernice Sandler, known as the “godmother of Title IX,” died on January 5. She was 90. In 1970, as a part-time visiting lecturer at the University of Maryland, she and the Women’s Equity Action League began filing administrative complaints with the Labor Department against more than 250 colleges and universities across the country. This work formed the basis for hearings in the House of Representatives that led to the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments law in 1972. Sandler continued to fight sex-based discrimination, serving as director of the Project on the Status and Education of Women at the Association of American Colleges from 1971 to 1991. Most recently, she was a senior fellow with the Women’s Research & Education Institute, in Washington, D.C.

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

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