Ten Women in New Higher Education Administrative Roles

Colleen Preuninger was named the United Methodist Ecumenical Campus Ministry Chaplain at Hendricks Chapel on the campus of Syracuse University in New York. She was the pastor of the Oneida First United Methodist Church in Oneida, New York.

Preuninger is a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She holds a master of divinity degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.

Michele Halstead has been promoted to vice president for administration and finance at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She was the assistant vice president for administration and finance. She has been on the staff at the university since 1990.

Halstead earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1986 from the University at Albany and a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1991 from SUNY New Paltz.

Caroline Dowd-Higgins is the new director of professional enrichment for the Indiana University Alumni Association. She was director of career and professional development at the university’s Maurer School of Law. She is the author of This Is Not the Career I Ordered: Empowering Strategies from Women Who Recharged, Reignited, and Reinvented Their Careers (Reinvention Press, 2010).

Dowd-Higgins holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in music from Indiana University. She is a former professional opera singer.

Michele C. Deramo was appointed director of diversity education and initiatives at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. She has been on the staff at the university since 1995.

Deramo is a graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She holds master’s degrees from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. She is currently working on a doctorate at Virginia Tech.

Kimberly Conway Dumpson was promoted to executive vice president at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She was the vice president for institutional advancement. She has been an administrator at the university since 2005.

Dumpson is a graduate of Towson State University in Maryland and the College of Law at Ohio Northern University.

Marina Markot was named director of Cornell Abroad at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She was associate director of the International Studies Office at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Markot holds a master’s degree in Germanic and Romance languages and a Ph.D. in linguistics from St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

Tracie Hunter was appointed director of financial aid at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. She was the assistant vice president of enrollment and director of financial aid at Marymount College in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California.

Hunter is a graduate of Occidental College in California and holds a master’s degree in public administration from California State University, Fullerton.

Eunice Bellinger is the new vice president of academic affairs at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, New York. She was executive vice president of academic affairs and provost at Genesee Community College in New York.

Dr. Bellinger is a graduate of Niagara University and holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology and a doctorate in the sociology of education from the University at Buffalo.

Carol Kim was named vice president for research at the University of Maine in Orono. Dr. Kim is a professor of molecular and biomedical science and director of the Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering at the University. She has served on the faculty at the University of Maine since 1998.

Dr. Kim is a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She earned a Ph.D. in microbiology at Cornell University.

Sonja A. Bennett was appointed vice president for external affairs and communications at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg. She was assistant vice president of communications and marketing at Claflin University, also in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Earlier in her career, Bennett was assistant vice president of marketing and communications at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and held many positions in television news.