Eight Women in New Higher Education Administrative Posts

Chandra Alston was appointed associate vice president for human resources at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.  She has been serving in the post on an interim basis since July while continuing in her role as assistant dean for finance and administration for the College of Allied Health Sciences.

Alston has been on the staff at the university for 14 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Tennessee at Martin and an MBA from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.

Leah Kraus was named chief information officer at North Carolina Central University in Durham. For the past seven years, she was associate vice chancellor for services at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Earlier, she was the chief information officer at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Kraus holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Beverly Reigle is the new director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at the University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute. She is an associate professor in the university’s College of Nursing. She has served on the faculty at the university for more than two decades.

Dr. Reigle holds a master’s degree from Texas Woman’s University and a Ph.D. in adult nursing from the University of Texas at Austin.

Carol A. Padden was named interim vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Padden has been a member of the faculty in the department of communication since 1983. Since 2008, she has been an associate dean in the Division of Social Sciences.

Professor Padden is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California at San Diego.

Karen McGlathery, professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, was appointed the inaugural associate vice president for research, sustainability, and the environment. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Virginia in 1996, she was a research associate at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Professor McGlathery is a graduate of Connecticut College in New London. She holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Shea Kidd Houze is the new associate director for external affairs for the University of Southern Mississippi Alumni Association. She was the coordinator of the First Scholars Program at the University of Memphis.

Houze is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Georgia and is on track to earn a doctoral degree in educational research from the University of Memphis in December.

Kimberly Causey-Gomez was named project coordinator for the Office of Philanthropy at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. She has been working with Goodwill Industries of Lower South Carolina in Myrtle Beach. Earlier she served as assistant commissioner for the Department of Human Services in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Causey-Gomez holds a bachelor’s degree in social work and a master of social work degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Kara Keenan is the new managing director of the Executive MBA Program of the Penn State Smeal College of Business in Philadelphia. She had served as the associate director of the chief learning officer program and the medical education program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

Keenan holds bachelor’s degrees in English and political science from Trinity College and a master’s degree in higher education administration from Columbia University.