A Dozen Women With New Administrative Responsibilities in Higher Education

Donna Ng was appointed senior vice president for finance and administration at Simmons College in Boston. She has been serving as vice president for business affairs and treasurer at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Earlier, Ng was senior associate vice provost for budget and planning at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Ng is a graduate of Boston College, where she majored in accounting. She earned an MBA at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Joanne Ferchland-Parella is the new chief advancement officer at Menlo College in Atherton, California. She was an associate vice president and a development officer at San Diego State University.

Ferchland-Parella is a graduate of Loyola University of Maryland. She earned a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an MBA from the University of Maryland.

Kathey Porter was named director of small business and vendor diversity relations at the University of Florida. She was the assistant director of procurement/supplier diversity and an adjunct instructor in the College of Business at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

Porter is a graduate of Savannah State University in Georgia and earned an MBA from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.

Katherine N. Franz was appointed executive director of the Midland Research Institute for Value Chain Creation at Michigan State University. Research at the institute includes areas such as water quality, food safety, and sustainability. Franz was the chief operating officer at GE Transportation.

Franz is a graduate of Michigan State University and holds a master’s degree in business administration from Central Michigan University.

Alison Sommers-Sayre was promoted to assistant vice president for information strategy and operations at Princeton University. She has served on the staff of the Office of Development at the university for 11 years. Since 2009, she has been the executive director of development information strategy.

Sommers-Sayre is an honors graduate of the University of Chicago.

Andrea Wickerham was named assistant director of athletics for human resources at Pennsylvania State University. For the past seven years, Wickerham has been vice president at the National Center for Drug Free Sport in Kansas City.

Wickerham is a graduate of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She earned a juris doctorate at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Tiffany Gray was appointed interim director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Resource Center at Syracuse University in New York. She has been serving as the director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Seattle University in Washington.

Gray is a graduate of the University of Toledo in Ohio, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree in college student personnel from the University of Dayton.

Andrea Angel was named senior director of development at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. She has been serving as director of development at the university’s College of Business and previously was director of athletics development.

Angel is a 2003 graduate of the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and began working at the university in 2005.

Leslie Edgar, an associate professor of agricultural communications in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, has been named assistant dean for students programs at the college.

Dr. Edgar earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science and a master’s degree in agriculture systems, technology, and education from Utah State University. She holds a doctoral degree in agricultural leadership, education, and communication from Texas A&M University.

Diane Hawkins was appointed director of communications at Kentucky State University. She was a digital producer at the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Hawkins is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where she majored in journalism. She is currently in a master’s degree program at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany.

Nancyellen Keene was named vice president for administration and general counsel at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. For the past 17 years, she has worked at the law firm Troutman Sanders in Richmond and will continue there on a part-time basis.

Keene is a graduate of Sweet Briar College. She earned her law degree at the University of Richmond.

Dana A. Brown was named interim chief financial officer at Jackson State University in Mississippi. She has been on the staff at the university for 19 years, most recently serving as associate vice president and treasurer.

Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and an MBA from Jackson State University.