A Dozen Women With New Administrative Duties in Higher Education

Jennifer Helms Culhane was named director of first-year academic initiatives in the Office of First-Year Experiences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She has been serving as a project coordinator in the department of human nutrition, foods, and exercise science at the university.

Dr. Culhane holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Georgia. She earned a Ph.D. at Virginia Tech.

Linda Gayton was appointed director of the Office of Financial Aid at Bowie State University in Maryland. She was the director of financial aid at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland.

Gayton is a graduate of Baruch College of the City University of New York. She holds a master’s degree in business administration and public administration from DeVry University.

Amber Mathwig is the inaugural student veteran assistance coordinator at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A 10-year Navy veteran, Mathwig was on the staff at the Veterans Resource Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Mathwig is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is currently studying for a master’s degree.

Sandra L. Hodge was named special assistant to the president for strategic initiatives at Jackson State University in Mississippi. She was the regional chief executive officer of the American Red Cross in Mississippi.

Hodge is a 1997 graduate of Jackson State University.

Carmen C. Lewis was appointed assistant dean for administration at the Sorrell College of Business of Troy University in Dothan, Alabama. Dr. Lewis has been a member of the Troy University faculty since 2009.

Dr. Lewis holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Florida State University and an MBA from Troy University.

Jessica Kuchta-Miller has been named to the new position of staff ombudsperson at Washington University in St. Louis. She was associate university ombudsperson at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Kuchta-Miller is a graduate of the University of South Dakota and the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul. Minnesota. She also holds a master’s degree in counseling from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and is currently studying for an educational doctorate at Hamline University.

Kelly Holley-Bockelmann was appointed director of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s to Ph.D. Bridge Program. The program aims to steer Black students into Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. programs in STEM fields. Dr. Holley-Bockelmann joined the staff at Vanderbilt University in 2007.

Dr. Holley-Bockelmann is a graduate of Montana State University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Karen Burstein was named executive director of the Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. She was a research professor at Arizona State University and senior scientist at the Southwest Institute for Families and Children in Phoenix.

Dr. Burstein is a graduate of the University of Arizona. She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in special education from Arizona State University.

Margarett Herder-Hill is the new director of the Writing Center at Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has held similar posts at other historically Black colleges and universities.

Herder-Hill is a graduate of Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree in English and African American literature from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

Kathleen Smith was appointed associate director of fellowships, internships, and exchanges for the Center for Global Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She was the assistant director for the Office of Education Abroad at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Smith is a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she majored in political science and Spanish. She holds a master’s degree in international education from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Amy Sloane-Garris was named executive director of graduate enrollment at Syracuse University in New York. She previously worked in the telecommunications industry for 19 years.

Sloane-Garris is a graduate of the State University of New York at Potsdam. She earned an MBA at Columbia College.

Emily Berg was appointed director of the Office of Institutional Research and Analysis at North Dakota State University in Fargo. She has been serving as interim director since April and has been on the staff for the past seven years.

Berg holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in zoology from North Dakota State University.