Three Notable Faculty Appointments

Theresa Welbourne was named the FirstTier Banks Distinguished Professor of Business and director of the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska’s College of Business Administration. She has been serving as research professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Previously, she taught at Cornell University and the University of Michigan Business School.

Professor Welbourne holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado.

Virginia Scharff was named Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. She is the only woman among the eight faculty members promoted to the university’s highest rank this fall.

Professor Scharff holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University. She earned a Ph.D. in history at the University of Arizona. She is the author of The Women Jefferson Loved (Harper, 2010) and coauthor of Home Lands: How Women Made the West (University of California Press, 2010).

Melody Johnson, the former superintendent of the Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas, was named Scholar in Residence at the College of Education at Texas Christian University. She has served in public education for 30 years, the last six as superintendent.

Dr. Johnson is a graduate of Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. She holds a master’s degree from Texas Woman’s University and an educational doctorate from the University of Texas.