Seven Women Tabbed for Dean Positions

Christine Himes was named dean of the Lewis College of Human Sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Her appointment is effective July 1. Dr. Himes has been serving as chair and Maxwell Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University in New York. She joined the faculty at Syracuse University in 1995.

Dr. Himes is a graduate of Purdue University, where she majored in Russian language and industrial management. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology and demography from the University of Pennsylvania.

Camilla P. Benbow was reappointed to a new five-year term as dean of Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Benbow has been dean of the Peabody College in 1998. The new term will begin on July 1, 2015.

Dr. Benbow holds a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and an educational doctorate, all from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She is co-editor of Intellectual Talent: Psychometric and Social Issues (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) and Academic Precocity: Aspects of its Development (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).

Elizabeth Spiller was named dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dr. Spiller will take on her new duties on July 1. She has been serving as associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Since 2007, she also has served on the faculty in the university’s English department. Previously, she served on the faculty at the University of North Texas and Texas Christian University.

Dr. Spiller is a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts and holds master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. She is the author of Reading and the History of Race in the Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Science, Reading, and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Nancy Butler Songer will be the next dean of the School of Education at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She will take office on August 3. Dr. Songer is a professor of science education and director of the Center for Essential Science at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Songer is a graduate of the University of California at Davis, where she majored in biology. She holds a master’s degree from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and a doctorate in science education from the University of California at Berkeley.

Kimberly Kempf-Leonard was appointed dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville, effective August 1. Since 2011, she has dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. She is also a professor and chair of the department of criminology and criminal justice.

Professor Kempf-Leonard is co-editor of Our Children, Their Children: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Differences in American Juvenile Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She holds a doctorate in social systems sciences from the University of Pennsylvania.

Marion Preest was named the interim Weinberg Family Dean of the W.M. Keck Science Department at Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges in Claremont, California. She will serve as dean for one year beginning in July while Dean David Hansen is on sabbatical. Dr. Preest is a professor of biology at Scripps College.

Dr. Preest is a graduate of the University of Otago in New Zealand. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Marsha Mailick was named interim dean of the Graduate School and interim vice chancellor for research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Mailick is the Vaughn Bascom and Elizabeth M. Boggs Professor and director of the Waisman Center in the School of Social Work at the university.

Professor Mailick is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a Ph.D. in social welfare from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.