New Administrative Roles in American Higher Education for Thirteen Women

Betty H. Olinger has been appointed program administrator for the School of Nursing at Kentucky State University. She served as chair of the School of Nursing from 2004 to 2013. Since that time she has served on the board of trustees of Berea College in Kentucky.

Dr. Olinger is a graduate of Berea College and holds a master’s degree in pediatric nursing and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Kentucky.

Jennifer Santiago has been named assistant vice president of risk management and university risk officer at Pennsylvania State University. She formerly served as director of risk management at Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation in East Hanover, New Jersey.

Santiago is a graduate of Rutgers University. She holds an MBA from Montclair State University.

Marianne Huebner has been named director of the Center for Statistical Training and Consulting at Michigan State University. She previously served as a senior associate consultant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where she directed consulting for the department of surgery.

Dr. Huebner holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Southern California.

Erin Lynch has been named the associate provost for scholarship, research, and innovation at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. Dr. Lynch most recently served as the research director of the Center of Excellence for Learning Sciences at Tennessee State University. Previously, she served as director of student research and innovation at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and was a tenured faculty member in the department of educational specialties.

Dr. Lynch received her bachelor’s degree from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where she majored in English secondary education. She holds a master’s degree in special education from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Tennessee State University.

Leigh Wallace has been named executive vice president at Southern Regional Technical College in Thomasville, Georgia. She has been with the college since 1997, most recently serving as the vice president for student affairs.

Wallace holds a bachelor of business administration degree from Georgia Southern University and a master of education degree from the University of Georgia.

Tracie Clark was promoted to vice president of strategy and organizational excellence at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was a special assistant to the president of the college. Dr. Clark has been with the college for 19 years.

Dr. Clark is a graduate of North Carolina Central University, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree in communication from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. in urban education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Bobbie Tchopev has been appointed the inaugural assistant dean for organizational improvement at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore. She was the executive director of student services at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

Tchopev holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Walsh College in Troy, Michigan, and a master’s degree in education from Johns Hopkins University.

Dawn Alston has been appointed chief financial officer and vice president for business and financial affairs at Spelman College in Atlanta. She joined the staff at Spelman College in 1999 as a research technician in the department of biology and biochemistry.

Alston is a graduate of Hampton University in Virginia, where she majored in biology. She holds a master’s degree in environmental toxicology from Clemson University in South Carolina and an MBA from Louisiana State University.

Cheryl Murphy has been selected as the next vice provost for distance education at the University of Arkansas. She has worked at the university for more than 20 years and has served as the chair of the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Health Professions since 2017.

Dr. Murphy earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at West Virginia University which is also where she earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in educational psychology.

Ylinka Barotto was appointed associate curator at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University in Houston. She was an associate curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Barotto received a master’s degree in curatorial studies at Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy and has completed coursework towards a master’s degree in art history at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Kaneisha Bailey Akinpelumi is the new associate vice president for research and sponsored programs at Xavier University in New Orleans. She was an assistant grants policy officer in the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration of the National Institutes of Health.

Akinpelumi holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and social welfare from Dillard University in New Orleans and a master of social work degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Terri Brown was promoted to chief of police at Florida State University, A 28-year veteran of the Florida State police force, she has been serving as deputy chief since 2018. Brown will be the first woman to hold the post.

Brown is a 2014 graduate of the FBI National Academy, an intensive program focusing on command-level development, senior leadership, and cutting-edge law enforcement techniques.

The University of Mississippi has hired Mandy King as the university’s new director of research integrity and compliance. King comes to Ole Miss from Southern Illinois University, where she was the university’s research compliance manager.

A native of Murphysboro, Illinois, King earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in physiology, both from Southern Illinois University.