Five Women Appointed to Dean Posts at Colleges and Universities

Jennifer R. Scanlon, William R. Kenan Professor of Humanities in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and the director of the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies program at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, will be the next dean for academic affairs at the highly rated liberal arts college. She will take on her new duties on July 1. Professor Scanlon is the author of several books including Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Professor Scanlon is a graduate of the State University of New York at Oneonta, where she majored in English and secondary education. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Delaware and a master’s degree and a P.D. in history from Binghamton University in New York.

Laura Lindenfeld has been appointed dean of the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University of the State University of New York System. She is a professor of journalism and executive director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at the university. Before joining the faculty at Stony Brook University in 2016, Dr. Lindenfeld was a professor of communication and director of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, a nonpartisan, independent research center at the University of Maine.

Dr. Lindenfled holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies from the University of California, Davis. She is the co-author of Feasting Our Eyes: Food Films and Cultural Identity in the United States (Columbia University Press, 2016).

Cherisse Jones-Branch has been named dean of the Graduate School at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Dr. Jones-Branch, the James E. and Wanda Lee Vaughn Endowed Professor of History at the university, will begin her new duties on July 1. Dr. Jones-Branch joined the faculty in 2003. She is the author of Crossing the Line: Women’s Interracial Activism in South Carolina During and After World War II (University Press of Florida, 2014).

Professor Jones-Branch is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the College of Charleston and a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University.

Heidi Bostic will be the next dean of the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, effective May 28. She has been serving as a visiting associate provost for special projects at Furman University, a private liberal arts university in Greenville, South Carolina. Dr. Bostic is the former dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire.

Dr. Bostic is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She earned a graduate degree at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in France and master’s and doctoral degrees at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Terry Rhodes is the new dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has served as interim dean of the College since February 2019. Prior to being named interim dean, Dr. Rhodes served for seven years as senior associate dean for fine arts and humanities. She joined the faculty at the university in 1987.

Dr. Rhodes earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil. She earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in music from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York.