Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, Illinois, enrolls about 5,700 undergraduate students in its two-year degree programs. Women make up about 60 percent of the student body at Prairie State. The college has announced three finalists for the position of president. All candidates will visit campus early next month for interviews and public forums. Two of the three finalists are women.
Valerie R. Roberson currently is vice president for academic affairs at Joliet Junior College in Illinois. She is the former president of Olive-Harvey College and was vice president for adult education at the City Colleges of Chicago.
Dr. Roberson is a graduate of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where she majored in psychology. She earned a master’s degree at Roosevelt University and a doctorate in higher education administration from Illinois State University.
Terri Winfree is the vice president of community and economic development at Prairie State College. Previously, she has served the college as associate dean and dean of continuing professional education.
Dr. Winfree earned an associate’s degree at Prairie State and a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in communication at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois. She holds a doctoral degree from Colorado State University.
Although it was initially founded as school for women, the University of Montevallo has never had a woman president. Now the university has reached a historic milestone and selected selected Michelle R. Johnston to serve as its next president.
The women who are taking on new leadership roles with professional academic organizations are Yasmeen Shorish of James Madison University in Virginia, Elena Carbone of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Shelley Lusetti of New Mexico State University, Oona Hathaway of Yale Law School, and Keisha Blain of Brown University.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is a national program run by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. Dr. Yelick, a computer scientist and longtime UC Berkeley faculty member, will become the laboratory's next director on July 1.
The selected candidate should have expertise and experience in theoretical models in labor and public economics as well as in microeconometrics and programming.