Administrative Appointments of Women at American Universities

Kristy Edmunds was named executive and artistic director of UCLA Live, the performing arts program at the University of California at Los Angeles. She was deputy dean at the Victorian College of Arts at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Edmunds is a graduate of Montana State University. She holds a master’s degree in playwrighting and theater direction from Western Washington University.

Renee Alexander was appointed associate dean of students and director of intercultural programs at Cornell University. Since 2006 she has served as director of diversity alumni programs at the university. Alexander is a 1974 graduate of Cornell.

Debra K. Townsend was appointed vice president for communications at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. She has been the head of her own consulting firm based in Loudonville, New York.

Townsend previously was director of communications for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Barbara J. Ellis was named vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. She has served as interim vice chancellor for the past year.

Ellis is a graduate of North Carolina A&T and holds an MBA from the Lubin School of Business at Pace University.

Tara Brooks was appointed director of multicultural affairs at Fairmont State University in West Virginia. After assuming her new duties, she will continue to serve as an associate professor in the university’s School of Education and Health and Human Performance.

Brooks earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at West Virginia University and is currently working toward a doctorate in special education at WVU.

On July 1, Kimberly Andrews Espy will become vice president for research and innovation and dean of the graduate school at the University of Oregon. Currently, she is associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Nebraska.

Dr. Espy is a graduate of Rice University in Houston. She earned a Ph.D. in clinical neuropsychology at the University of Houston.