Five Women Announce Their Retirements From Higher Education Posts

Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, has announced that she will retire in June 2016. Dr. Schneider has served as president of the 1,300-member organization since 1998. She has taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Chicago State University and Boston University.

Dr. Schneider is a magna cum laude graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.

Gianna Marrs is stepping down from her position as director of the Office of Student Financial Aid at the University of Maine. She has been on the staff at the university for 29 years. The university has named a scholarship program in her honor.

Marrs is a graduate of the University of Rochester. She holds a master’s degree in counselor education from the University of Maine.

Patricia Biesiot is retiring as associate dean in the College of Science and Technology of the University of Southern Mississippi. She has been on the staff at the university for 26 years.

Dr. Biesiot holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She earned a Ph.D. in a joint program administers by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Mimi Fenton is leaving her post as dean of the Graduate School and Research at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. She will return full-time to her faculty post in the university’s English department. She has served as dean since 2012 and has been on the university’s faculty since 1992.

Professor Fenton holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from the University of Wyoming. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kentucky.

Betty Porzuczek, assistant professor of the fine arts at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, was granted emerita status. She has taught at the university for the past 46 years and has served as the accompanist for the Misericordia Choral Society.

Porzuczek earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano from the University of Iowa.