Five Women Scholars Announce They Are Stepping Down From High-Level Academic Positions

Joan Hirt, professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, has retired and was named professor emerita. She joined the faculty at Virginia Tech in 1996 as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in 2009.

Professor Hirt holds a bachelor’s degree in Russian studies from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Maryland, College Park and a doctorate in higher education policy and administration from the University of Arizona.

Laurel Jones, president of Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, announced that she will step down on January 2. She became president of the community college in July 2013. Previously, Dr. Jones was president of Mission College in Santa Clara, California.

Dr. Jones is a graduate of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree in English from California State University, Fullerton and an educational doctorate from the University of La Verne in California.

Dian Fox, professor of Hispanic studies and professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, has retired. She joined the faculty at the university in 1987. She is the author of several books including Refiguring the Hero: From Peasant to Noble in Lope de Vega and Calderón (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991).

Professor Fox is a graduate of the University of Oregon. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Duke University.

Milla Cozart Riggio, the James J. Goodwin Professor of English at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, has retired. She has taught at Trinity College since 1972.

Dr. Riggio is a graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Gloria Cordes Larson, president of Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, announced that she will step down from her post on June 30, 2018. Larson became Bentley’s seventh president in 2007.

Larson is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the University of Virginia School of Law.

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