New Administrative Appointments for Seven Women in Higher Education

Kendra Alexander has been appointed associate vice chancellor of development at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. Alexander has served as interim associate vice chancellor since May 2019. Prior to this role, she worked in the ECU Alumni Association, the College of Education and the Office of Planned Giving.

Alexander received her bachelor’s degree from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is a certified fundraising executive.

Leann Markham was named executive director of information services in the Division of Development and Alumni at Mississippi State University. Markham has worked in Information Technology Services at Mississippi State for 20 years.

A native of Red Bay, Alabama, Dr. Markham earned a bachelor’s degree in business information systems, a master’s degree in business information systems with a minor in accounting, and a doctorate in community college leadership.

Laura McLeran was named interim vice president for student life at the University of Iowa. She was a senior advisor to the president and associate vice president for external relations. McLeran began her career at the university with the Division of Student Services, now the Division of Student Life, in 1987.

McLeran earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from the University of Iowa.

Jodi Lundgren was named interim director of the South Dakota Art Museum at the University of South Dakota. She was coordinator of exhibitions at the museum. Lundgren joined the South Dakota Art Museum in 2013 after working at the Visual Arts Center in the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls for nearly nine years.

Lundgren earned a bachelor’s of fine arts degree with a painting emphasis and a secondary major in psychology at the University of South Dakota.

Meagan Counley has been named interim Title IX coordinator in the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Counley has served as the university’s deputy Title IX coordinator and as a senior investigator since 2016.

Counley received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in criminal justice from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

Elizabeth Green has been named executive director of online student success for Syracuse University in New York. Since 2018, she has been director of the Office of Online Student Success at the university.

Green earned a master’s degree in student affairs administration from the University at Buffalo, and a bachelor’s degree in English from the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Nilima N. Renukdas has been named director of the Fish Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Located in the heart of the commercial baitfish industry, the Fish Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Lonoke specializes in water quality and the diseases of baitfish and ornamental fishes. Dr. Renukdas was interim assistant director for the Lonoke lab.

Dr. Renukdas has a Ph.D. in biotechnology, a master’s degree in botany and a bachelor’s degree in botany and biomedical techniques from the University of Pune in India.