Four Women Who Are Stepping Down From High-Level Posts at Colleges and Universities

Kimberly G. Walker, chief investment officer at Washington University in St. Louis, announced that she will leave her post on December 31. She has served as chief investment officer at the university since 2006.

During her tenure as chief investment officer, the university’s endowment increased by 40 percent. Walker will serve as a consultant to the university until a permanent replacement is found.

Barbara Ryder, professor of computer science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, has been granted emerita status from the university’s board of visitors. Professor Ryder served as chair of the department of computer science at Virginia Tech from 2008 to 2015 and held the J. Byron Maupin Professorship of Engineering from 2008 to 2016. She taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey from 1982 to 2008.

Professor Ryder is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in applied mathematics. She holds a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in computer science from Rutgers University.

Lynn Garafola, a professor of dance at Barnard College, is retiring at the end of the semester. She has served on the Barnard faculty for 16 years. Professor Garafola also is the founder of the Columbia University Studies in Dance seminar.

Professor Garafola is the author of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (Oxford University Press, 1989) and Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance (Wesleyan University Press, 2005).  She has also edited or co-edited several other volumes including Dance for a City: Fifty Years of the New York City Ballet (Columbia University Press, 1999). Dr. Garafola is a graduate of Barnard College and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York.

Ann R. Britt, president of Martin Community College in Williamston, North Carolina, has announced that she will step down in March. Dr. Britt has led the community college for nearly 17 years. Martin Community College enrolls about 900 students. Women are 69 percent of the student body.

Dr. Britt has come under fire after a recent report from the North Carolina Community College System found fiscal mismanagement, long-term vacancies in leadership positions, and college president micromanagement at the institution.