Mercyhurst U. Names New President; U. of Maryland-Baltimore County’s President to Step Down Next Year

CHIEF EXECUTIVES
Appointments
Andrea Backman, acting president of Strayer University since November 2020, has been named president.

Lawrence Brandyburg, executive vice president at Bishop State Community College, has been named interim president. He will succeed Reginald Sykes, who stepped down.

Kathleen A. Getz, dean of the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola University Maryland, has been named president of Mercyhurst University. She succeeds Michael T. Victor.

Mary Gutierrez, vice president for instruction at Diablo Valley College, has been named chancellor of the University of New Mexico at Taos.

Rhea Law, former chief executive officer and chair of the board of the law firm Fowler White Boggs and former chair of the board at the University of South Florida, has been named interim president of the university. She succeeds Steven Currall, who stepped down.

Rick Massengale, vice president for academic and student affairs at North Arkansas College, has been named president. He succeeds Randy Esters, who stepped down.

Alan R. Miciak, executive vice president and former dean of the Boler College of Business at John Carroll University, has been named president of the university. He succeeds Michael D. Johnson.

Kindred Murillo, former superintendent/president of the Southwestern Community College District, has been named interim superintendent of Santa Barbara City College.

Amy C. Novak, former president of Dakota Wesleyan University, became president of St. Ambrose University on August 7. She succeeded Sister Joan Lescinski.

Paul J. O’Reilly, vice president for advancement at Thomas Aquinas College, has been named president. He succeeds Michael F. McLean.

Dan Scholz, interim president of Cardinal Stritch University since August 2020, has been named to the post permanently.

Laurie Shanderson, founding dean of the School of Health Sciences at Northcentral University, has been named chancellor of Methodist College. She succeeds the college’s interim chancellor, Tracy Poelvoorde.

Resignations
W. Joseph King, president of Lyon College, has resigned. Melissa Taverner, the provost, will serve as interim president.

Jo Ann Rooney, president of Loyola University Chicago since 2016, plans to step down next year.

Steve Scott, president of Pittsburg State University, plans to step down in June 2022.

Retirements
Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County since 1992, plans to retire at the end of the 2021-22 academic year.

CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICERS
Appointments
Daniel Erb, senior vice president for academic affairs at High Point University, has been named provost.

Resignations
JoAnne Epps, executive vice president and provost at Temple University, has stepped down. Gregory Mandel, dean of the university’s Beasley School of Law, has been named interim provost.

Ben Leslie, provost and executive vice president at Gardner-Webb University, plans to step down and return to the faculty in 2022.

OTHER TOP ADMINISTRATORS
Appointments
Errol Arkilic, co-founder of M34 Capital, a private investment company, and an instructor at the University of California at Berkeley, will become chief innovation officer at the University of California at Irvine and executive director of UCI Beall Applied Innovation on October 1.

Catherine Z. Brennan, deputy treasurer for the State of New Jersey, has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Phillip (Flapp) Cockrell, vice president for student affairs and vice provost at the University of Toledo, has been named vice president for campus engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion at Cleveland State University.

Libby Eckhardt, vice president for university communications and marketing at Tulane University, has been named vice president of the Office of University Communications at Denison University.

Mary Gresch, interim senior vice president for advancement at the University of Washington since July 2020, has been named to the post permanently.

Michele Hancock, a professor of education at Carthage College, has been named vice president for college culture of inclusion.

Kendall Isaac, vice president, general counsel, and assistant to the president for special initiatives at Dickinson College, has been named the first general counsel at Clark University.

Matthew Mendelsohn, a director in the Yale Investments Office overseeing venture-capital assets at Yale University, has been named chief investment officer.

Greg Oler, vice president for finance and deputy treasurer at the University of Delaware, has been named vice president and chief financial officer at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Harold Paz, executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs at Ohio State University and chief executive officer of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, has been named executive vice president for health sciences at Stony Brook University of the State University of New York.

Dwain C. Pruitt, assistant dean for curriculum and governance in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville, has been named the first chief equity officer at Wofford College.

Jamie Simpson, dean of the College of Health Professions and associate vice president for institutional effectiveness at Midland University, has been named vice president for student affairs and institutional effectiveness.

Valoree Vargo, interim vice president for philanthropy and alumni engagement at Kent State University since June 2020, has been named to the post permanently.

Retirements
William Welburn, vice president for inclusive excellence in the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion at Marquette University, retired on August 31.

DEANS
Appointments
Steven Dubinett, senior associate dean of translational research in the David Geffen School of Medicine and associate vice chancellor for research at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been named interim dean of the school of medicine. He succeeds Kelsey Martin, who left to become director of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.

Dana Goldman, a professor of public policy, pharmacy, and economics at the University of Southern California, has been named dean of the Price School of Public Policy.

Jon Gould, a professor and director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, will become dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California at Irvine on January 1.

Cameron Green, a professor of anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynecology, and health management and policy at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has been named dean of the City University of New York’s School of Medicine at the City College of New York.

Oren R. Griffin, associate dean of strategic initiatives at Mercer University’s School of Law, will become dean of the College of Law at the University of Tulsa on January 1.

Vice Adm. James Houck (retired), a faculty member at Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs and director of the Center for Security Research and Education at Pennsylvania State University at University Park, has been named interim dean of Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs.

Beth Kubitskey, associate dean of students and curriculum in the College of Education at Eastern Michigan University, has been named dean of the School of Education and Human Services at the University of Michigan at Flint.

Mira Lowe, assistant dean of student experiences and director of the Innovation News Center in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, will become dean of the School of Journalism and Graphic Communication at Florida A&M University on October 22.

Jacqueline Reich, a professor and chair of the department of communication and media studies at Fordham University, has been named dean of the School of Communications and the Arts at Marist College.

Sue Rieg, who retired in June as assistant chair of the department of professional studies in education in the College of Education and Communications at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, has been named interim dean of the college after Lara Luetkehans was named interim provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Ann Rivera, dean of faculty at Villa Maria College, has been named academic dean at Hilbert College.

Ellen Weinauer, dean of the Honors College at the University of Southern Mississippi, has been named dean of the Honors College at the University of Maine at Orono.

Julia Wilson, founder and chief executive of Wilson Global Communications, has been named interim dean of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communication at Hampton University.

Resignations
Susan King, dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, plans to step down and return to the faculty.

Kate VandenBosch, dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, plans to step down at the end of this academic year.

Retirements
Terry Rhodes, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will retire in June.

OTHER ADMINISTRATORS
Appointments
Katie Hartman, a professor of marketing and associate dean in the College of Business at Ohio University, has been named associate provost for faculty development.

Wendy M. Nicholson, an adviser for the CUNY Leads program in the Center for Career and Professional Development at the City University of New York’s La Guardia Community College, has been named the college’s first executive director of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

G.P. (Bud) Peterson, president emeritus of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been named chair of the Kummer Institute Foundation Board of Directors at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Amanda Stent, leader of the People and Language AI Team and a natural-language-processing architect at Bloomberg LP, has been named the inaugural director of the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Colby College.

Erica Studer-Byrnes, associate director of the Heavener School of Business in the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, has been named assistant dean and director of the school.

Resignations
Kim Record, director of intercollegiate athletics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has stepped down.

FACULTY
Appointments
Zeynep Tufekci, a visiting professor in the new Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University’s Journalism School and an associate professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been named an opinion columnist at The New York Times.

ORGANIZATIONS
Appointments
Gloria D. Thomas, director of the Carolina Women’s Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been named president of Higher Education Resource Services.

DEATHS
Edmond H. Fischer, a biochemist and professor at the University of Washington, died on August 27. He was 101. Fischer shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 with Edwin G. Krebs. His work contributed to the discovery of a fundamental regulatory mechanism in cells, how cells communicate with one another.

Lester Milton Salamon, a professor of political science and director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, died of pancreatic cancer on August 20. He was 78.

Ray Wallace, former chancellor of Indiana University Southeast, died on August 26. Wallace became chancellor in 2014 and stepped down this year due to health problems.

Robert L. Wolke, a food-science writer and professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, died on August 29. He was 93.