Newman Centered in California

Comings and Goings ... The University of California Board of Regents approved Katherine S. Newman, currently the system chancellor for academic programs and the senior vice president for economic development at the University of Massachusetts, to be provost and executive vice president for academic affairs in the California system. An expert on income inequality who recently served as...

Former U.S. Ed Secy to Lead SUNY System

Comings and Goings ... Former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. was named the next chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), the largest comprehensive public higher education system in the U.S. King will begin heading the 370,000-student system in January, succeeding Jim Malatras, who resigned last year, and Deborah Stanley, the former president of SUNY Oswego, who serv...

Tufts University Names New President

Comings and Goings ... Tufts University named Johns Hopkins University Provost Sunil Kumar to be the Massachusetts institution's next president, succeeding Anthony Monaco in July 2023. Born in India, Kumar will be the first Asian American and first person of color to serve as Tufts president. He has previously served as dean at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a facu...

UConn Student Affairs Leader Heads to Georgetown, Plus Change at Region’s Largest Daily and in Mass. Biotech Sector

Comings and Goings ... University of Connecticut Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Eleanor “Elly” JB Daugherty announced she is leaving UConn in January to become vice president for student affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her duties in Connecticut will be split between current UConn employees, Pamela Schipani who will become interim a...

WPI Selects Materials Scientist as New Prez

Comings and Goings ... Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) selected materials scientist “Grace” Jinliu Wang as its 17th president, effective April 3, 2023. She succeeds Laurie Leshin, who served as WPI president for eight years before joining NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as director in May. WPI Provost Winston “Wole” Soboyejo has served as interim preside...

Montserrat Prez to Take Museum Job

Comings and Goings ... Montserrat College President Kurt T. Steinberg announced he will step down as head of the arts college in Beverly, Mass. in January 2023 to become chief operating officer of the Peabody Essex Museum in neighboring Salem, Mass. Before joining Montserrat, Steinberg was interim president and executive vice president at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design for 12 yea...

MIT Taps Duke Provost as President

Comings and Goings ... MIT selected Duke University Provost Sally Kornbluth as its new president, succeeding L. Rafael Reif, who announced in February that he would resign after 10 years leading the world-famous research university. A cell biologist, Kornbluth will begin as MIT's 18th president on Jan. 1, 2023. The Boston Architectural College named Lindsay Hummer as its new vice p...

Higher Ed Changes in New England's Second Biggest City ... and Beyond

Comings and Goings ... The Assumption University Board of Trustees appointed Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Greg Weiner to be the college's next president. Weiner has served as the Worcester, Mass. Catholic college's interim president since April, when Francesco C. Cesareo announced his planned retirement. Worcester Polytechnic Institute appointed Stanley Horton as its direct...

A Third Karam to Chair UMass Trustees

Comings and Goings ... Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker appointed Stephen Karam, principal of the Fall River, Mass. benefit consulting group Karam Associates, to chair the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees. He succeeds Robert Manning, who served as chair for the past seven years. Karam’s father, Robert Karam, and uncle, James Karam, both previously served as board chairs for the...

UConn Calls It Permanent for Interim Prez

Comings and Goings ... Radenka Maric, who has been interim president of the University of Connecticut since February, was named the 17th president of the state’s flagship land-grant institution. Formerly UConn’s vice president for research, innovation and entrepreneurship, Maric succeeded former interim president Andrew Agwunobi. Maric becomes the second woman president of the universit...

Noted Higher Ed Policy Advocates Terry Hartle, Sally M. Johnstone to Retire

Comings and Goings ... Terry Hartle, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the American Council on Education (ACE) since 1993, announced he will retire at the end of this year. Before joining the higher education lobbying group, Hartle was a key aide to the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resourc...

Smith College Names Swarthmore Provost as Its Next Leader

Comings and Goings ... Smith College selected Swarthmore College Provost and Dean of the Faculty Sarah Willie-LeBreton to be the 12th president of the Seven Sisters and Five Colleges institution in Northampton, Mass. She'll succeed Kathleen McCartney, who announced that she will step down in 2023. A sociologist, Willie-LeBreton studies social inequality and race and ethnicity. As Swarthmore...

Big Changes at New England's Biggest University

Comings and Goings ... In a stream of high-profile changes at the largest higher education institution in New England (if you don't count the heavily online Southern New Hampshire University), Boston University (BU) President Robert A. Brown announced he will step down at the end of the academic year after 17 years in charge. The university also reported that Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Glo...

A Royal Goodbye

Holyoke Community College (HCC) President Christina Royal announced she will retire from the college at the end of the 2022-23 academic year, after serving as the first woman, first openly gay and first biracial leader of the 75-year-old institution, the oldest two-year college in Massachusetts. Before joining HCC in 2017, Royal was provost and vice president of academic ...

At University Modeling Innovative Dual Leadership, Key Piece to Step Down

Comings and Goings ... Steve Kaplan, who has led the University of New Haven for nearly 20 years as president, then chancellor and CEO, told the university community that he will retire in June 2023, a year earlier than expected. In February, the university promoted an “innovative presidential transition plan” in which Kaplan moved from president to chancellor, while Sheahon...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift to Hand Over Reins as LearnLaunch Prez; NACUBO and Nellie Mae Ed Foundation Leaders also Plan to Step Down

Comings and Goings ... LearnLaunch Executive Director and President Jane Swift announced she will step away from the day-to-day leadership of the nonprofit educational technology group she has led since 2019 and become its board president and senior advisor. She will be succeeded as executive director by Kate Donaghey, who has served as executive vice president of policy at LearnLaunch and ...

Setti Warren to Lead Harvard IOP as Interim, While Gearan Heads Back to Geneva

Comings and Goings ... Harvard Institute of Politics Director Mark D. Gearan announced he will step down after more than four years to become president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., a post he earlier held from from 1999 to 2017. Setti D. Warren, the institute's executive director, will serve as its interim director, while the Harvard Kennedy School searches for a new lon...

Dartmouth College Names Its First Woman President

Comings and Goings ... Dartmouth College Trustees elected cognitive scientist and Barnard College President Sian Leah Beilock as the Hanover, N.H. Ivy League institution's first woman president. She'll take over next July, succeeding Philip Hanlon. Beilock's research has focused on brain science and performance anxiety in areas such as test-taking. Though Beilock is the first woman to be el...

State University of New York Taps Enrollment Expert from CT State to Lead SUNY-Ulster

Comings and Goings ... The State University of New York (SUNY) appointed Connecticut State Community Colleges Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Alison Buckley as the next president of SUNY Ulster, succeeding Alan Roberts who has led the university since 2015. Thomas College hired Chelsea Moeller as its new vice president for advancement. Moeller recently served...

Alexander Announces Plans to Leave Lasell

Comings and Goings ... Lasell University President Michael B. Alexander announced he will step down at the end of the 2023 academic year after 16 years leading the Newton, Mass. college-turned-university. Alexander is also the CEO of Lasell Village, a model senior living community located on the school’s Newton campus. A NEBHE delegate, he is the founder of the Lower Cost Models for Indep...

Global Replace: First-Gen College Grad Who Led National University and Johns Hopkins Ed School Picked as Chancellor of Adult-Focused UMass Global

Comings and Goings ... University of Massachusetts Global named David Andrews to be the next chancellor of the online adult-focused nonprofit institution formerly known as Brandman University, which affiliated with the public UMass system in September 2021. He was president of National University from 2016 to 2021 and before that led the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, wher...

Emmanuel Chooses Chemist as Next Prez, Spencer to Leave Bates Next Summer, South Dakota Higher Ed Chief to Take Interim Reins at Troubled Western Connecticut

Comings and Goings ... Emmanuel College selected chemist Mary K. Boyd to be its 13th president. Boyd is currently provost of Georgia's Berry College. She was previously dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego and worked as a principal investigator for a National Science Foundation grant supporting the research of female faculty, particularly instructors of co...

A Connecticut-Educated Tribal Chief Will Be Signing Your Dollars

Comings and Goings ... President Joe Biden appointed Lynn Malerba, chief of the Mohegan Tribe, as treasurer of the United States, the first Native American to hold the position. Malerba earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Connecticut’s University of Saint Joseph (USJ) in 1983 (then called Saint Joseph College), received USJ’s Distinguished Alumni Nightingale Health Science Aw...

Bacow to Leave Harvard Next Summer

Comings and Goings ... Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow announced he plans to step down next June 30, 2023, after five years at the helm of America's oldest higher education institution. An economist, lawyer and environmental public policy expert, he helped lead Harvard through the Covid-19 pandemic and launched a panel to examine the university's ties to slavery. As president of...

University of New England Taps Rutgers Health Dean as Provost

Comings and Goings ... The University of New England appointed Rutgers University School of Health Professions dean Gwendolyn Mahon to be provost and senior vice president for academic affairs of the Biddeford, Maine university, effective Oct. 24. Mahon previously was associate dean for administration at the the Rutgers Health Professions school, assistant dean for research at Rutge...

Szakas Will Continue as Interim Leader of UMaine at Augusta as Initial Choice for Prez Withdraws

Comings and Goings ... Michael R. Laliberte withdrew as the choice for the next president of the University of Maine at Augusta (UMA) after the revelation that he had received a vote of no confidence from his former university, the State University of New York at Delhi, which led to a flurry of votes of no confidence in the University of Maine System. The system initially announced Lalibert...

New Guard at University of Southern Maine, Two Maine Community Colleges

Comings and Goings ... The University of Maine System selected Jacqueline Edmonson, the currrent chancellor and chief academic officer at Penn State Greater Allegheny, a mostly commuter college near Pittsburgh, as the 18th president of the University of Southern Maine, also a mostly commuter college. She'll succeed Glenn Cummings, who served as president for seven years and announced his re...

Research Leader Julie Chen Will Be First Asian American Chancellor at UMass Lowell

Comings and Goings ... The UMass System Board of Trustees named Julie Chen as the next chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She will succeed Jacquie Moloney, who last year announced her plan to step down this June. Chen will be the first Asian American to lead the 18,000-student university. She has been on the UMass Lowell faculty since 1997, including serving as vice pro...

Berklee College of Music Appoints its First Female President

Comings and Goings ... Muhl Berklee College of Music named Erica Muhl, a composer who has led music and arts schools at the University of Southern California, to be its first female president, succeeding Roger Brown, who is stepping down after leading the college for 17 years. The University of Rhode Island named Gaurav Khanna, currently a physics professor at...

Egan Named Co-Chair of Higher Ed Committee at New England Council

Dan Egan Comings and Goings ... Dan Egan, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island (AICURI), was named the new co-chair, of the New England Council's Higher Education Committee, succeeding Tim Leshan, who stepped down from the committee role when he was recently promoted in his work at Northeastern University to vice provost for research,...