Seven Women Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions at Colleges and Universities

Vanessa K. Valdés was appointed interim dean of the Macauley Honors College at the City University of New York. She is a tenured professor in the department of classical and modern languages and literatures at the City College of New York.

Dr. Valdés is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in English. She holds a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Robyn Schiffman is the new dean of liberal arts at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She was dean of humanities, fine arts, and social sciences at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby, Illinois. She is a former professor of literature at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey.

Dr. Schiffman holds a bachelor’s degree in English and women’s studies from Trinity College. She earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in comparative literature and humanities from the University of Chicago.

Ahkinyala Cobb-Abdullah is the new interim dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Union University in Richmond. An associate professor of environmental science and ecology, Dr. Cobb-Abdullah was the director of the Center for STEM Diversity at the university.

Dr. Cobb-Abdullah is a graduate of Tuskegee University in Alabama. She holds a master’s degree in molecular biology and a Ph.D. in environmental biomolecular sciences from Florida A&M University.

Ann Saurbier was selected as dean of the Gary E. West College of Business at West Liberty University in West Virginia. Dr. Saurbier was a professor of management at Walsh College in Troy, Michigan. She joined the faculty there in 1997.

Dr. Saurbier earned her undergraduate degree in accountancy at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned a master’s degree in management and a doctoral degree in management in executive leadership at Walsh College.

Michelle Scatton-Tessier has been selected to serve as the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for the 2021-2022 academic year. She is an associate dean and a professor of French in the department of world languages and cultures at the university. She joined the faculty in 2003.

Dr. Scatton-Tessler is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University. She earned a master’s degree at Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in French at the University of Iowa.

Margaret Hanson has been appointed interim dean of the University of Cincinnati’s College of Arts and Sciences. She will serve in this position for two years. Dr. Hanson joined the department of physics at the university in 1998 as an assistant professor. She was tenured in 2003 and became a full professor in 2009.

Professor Hanson holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and astrophysics from the University of Minnesota. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado.

Nancy Staudt, dean of the School of Law and the Howard & Caroline Cayne Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has accepted a position as the Frank and Marcia Carlucci Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California. She was been dean of the Washington University School of Law since 2014. Earlier, she served as vice dean and the inaugural holder of the Edward G. Lewis Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

Dr. Staudt earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University, a law degree from the University of Minnesota, and a doctorate in public policy from the University of Chicago.