A Dozen Women in New Higher Education Administrative Posts

Mary Ellen Gillespie was named director of intercollegiate athletics at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She has been serving as associate athletics director at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She has been an administrator at Bowling Green since 2006. Earlier, she was director of development for the Schools of Nursing and Health Sciences at Purdue University.

Gillespie holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Katherine A. Ates was appointed vice president and chief of staff for the president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Since 2003, she has served as chief of staff for Jay Rockefeller, U.S. senator from West Virginia.

Ates is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park, where she majored in government and Japanese. She earned a law degree at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Marilyn T. Smith was named vice president for information technology and chief information officer at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She has been serving as director of information services and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Smith is a graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in astronomy. She holds an MBA from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Naomi Sigg was appointed director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She was assistant director of student involvement and leadership at Washington University in St. Louis.

Sigg earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Fiona Murray is the new associate dean for innovation at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She will continue in her role as director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Murray is a graduate of the University of Oxford, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a Ph.D. from the School of  Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.

Virginia Chapman was promoted to director of sustainability at Yale University. Her appointment is effective on November 18. She currently serves as director of facilities sustainable initiatives.

Chapman joined the staff at Yale in 1995. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture.

Pamela Jeffries was appointed first vice provost for digital initiatives at Johns Hopkins University. She has been serving as a professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the university’s School of Nursing. She joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 2009 after teaching at Indiana University.

Dr. Jeffries is a graduate of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in nursing science from Indiana University.

Kimberly L. Logan has been chosen as the next chief information officer at Alabama A&M University. She will assume her new duties on November 15. She has been serving as director of academic computing at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr. Logan holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree, and a doctorate in instructional technology education, all from Mississippi State University.

Denise Wilbur was appointed interim vice president for academic affairs at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. She has been serving as vice president for academic affairs and professor of education at Gwynedd-Mercy College outside of Philadelphia.

Dr. Wilbur is a graduate of Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, where she majored in speech and theatre. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Connecticut and an educational doctorate from Harvard University.

Shari Clarke was named vice provost for diversity and inclusion at Ohio University in Athens. She has been serving as vice president for multicultural affairs at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. She will begin her new job on January 13.

Dr. Clarke is a graduate of Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. She holds a master’s degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a doctorate in educational leadership and higher education from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Trish Boyles was appointed director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Ally program at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is a former professor of business and entrepreneurial studies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Boyles is a graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree from Western Carolina University and a Ph.D. in management from Virginia Tech.

Rychetta Watkins is the new assistant director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute at the University of Memphis. She is a former assistant professor of English at Rhodes College in Memphis. She is the author of Black Power, Yellow Power, and the Making of Revolutionary Identity (University Press of Mississippi, 2012).

Dr. Watkins is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois.