New Administrative Appointments for 13 Women at Major Universities

Cheri LeBlanc was named executive director of the Health and Wellness Center at Washington University in St. Louis. She joined the staff at the center in 2013 and has been serving as interim director. Earlier in her career she held student health posts at McGill University in Montreal and Boston University.

Dr. LeBlanc earned her medical degree at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and completed a family medicine residency at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario.

Nicole N. Collins was appointed director of public safety and chief of police at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. She had been serving as assistant vice president in the department of public safety at New York University. Earlier, she served on the campus police forces at Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee.

Collins is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Savannah State University in Georgia, where she majored in criminal justice.

Martha A. Kalnin Diede was named director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence in the Office of Academic Affairs at Syracuse University in New York. She was director of Coulter Faculty Commons for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Earlier in her career, she taught in the English department at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington.

Dr. Diede is a graduate of Seattle Pacific University. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Yvette Leverett was promoted to director of University Testing Services at the University of Georgia. She had been serving as associate director and has worked in this division since 2008.

Leverett earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of South Florida in Tampa, and a master’s degree in sociology from Atlanta University.

Natasha Saunders was appointed director of the Student Opportunity and Achievement Resources (SOAR) program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She joined the university a year ago as director of student recruitment for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Saunders is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, where she majored in family consumer sciences. She holds a master’s degree in human and environmental sciences from the University of Kentucky.

Lori D. Barcliff Baptista has been appointed associate dean for undergraduate programs and advising in the School of Communications at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She was the director of the African American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Baptista is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a master’s degree in liberal studies at Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in performance studies at Northwestern University.

Julia McHugh was named the Trent A. Carmichael Curator of Academic Initiatives at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. She has spent the past two years as the Douglas Foundation Fellow in American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Dr. McHugh is a graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Tracey A. Reeves will be the next assistant vice president for news and campus communications at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. She has been serving as director of media relations at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Before joining the academic world, Reeves was a reporter and editor for the Washington Post and the Providence Journal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communications and journalism from Illinois State University.

Debra F. Williams was appointed associate vice president and chief human resources officer at Wayne State University in Detroit. She was executive vice president for Right Management, a global talent firm, in Southfield Michigan.

Williams is a graduate of Wayne State University, where she majored in journalism. She earned an MBA at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan.

Jordan R. Ramsey was named associate director of the Mississippi State University Alumni Association. She has been serving as associate director of internal audit at the university. Before joining the staff at the university in 2012, Ramsey was an auditor for FedEx.

Ramsey is a magna cum laude graduate of Mississippi State University, where she majored in business administration and Spanish. She also holds an MBA from Mississippi State.

Danisha Williams was promoted to director of admissions at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. She was assistant dean of admissions. Dr. Williams joined the staff at Fisk University in 2010 as an academic adviser.

Dr. Williams is a graduate of Fisk University, where she majored in sociology. She holds a master of public administration degree from Southern Illinois University and an educational doctorate from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville.

Emma Anderson was appointed co-director of diversity in the College of Information and Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts. She had been serving as a computer science teacher at University Prep, a college preparatory school in Seattle.

Anderson is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, where she majored in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. She holds a master’s degree in mathematics and science education from Seattle Pacific University.

Jennifer Horace is a new Title IX/equal opportunity investigator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was a student affairs officer at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Dr. Horace is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where she majored in speech communication and rhetoric. She holds a master’s degree in higher education student affairs from Indiana University and a doctorate in higher education leadership from Clemson University in South Carolina.

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