New Administrative Posts for Seven Women in Higher Education

Olufunke A. Fontenot was named interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Albany State University in Georgia. She has been serving as a professor of criminal justice and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville.

Dr. Fontenot holds degrees in law from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, the University of Cambridge in England, and Yale University in Connecticut. She earned a doctorate in higher education management from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Staci Brennan was named director of athletics at the Mont Alto campus of Pennsylvania State University. She was associate director of athletics and compliance coordinator at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.

Brennan is a graduate of Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree in mass communication from Towson University in Maryland.

Felita Y. Singleton was appointed director of student veteran affairs at Portland State University in Oregon. She previously taught at the Graduate School of Counseling Psychology at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.

Singleton holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in educational psychology/counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Susan Gibbons, University Librarian at Yale University was reappointed through 2021. She was also named deputy provost for collections and scholarly collections. Dr. Gibbons was first named University Librarian in 2011.

Dr. Gibbons holds a master’s degree and a master of library science degree from Indiana University. She earned an MBA at the University of Massachusetts and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Rochester in New York.

Peggy Schmidt was appointed associate dean for academic programs and student affairs at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University. She has been serving as an associate professor of population health and epidemiology and director of outcomes assessment at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California.

Dr. Schmidt is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where she majored in animal science. She holds a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the University of Minnesota and later earned a master’s degree in veterinary preventive medicine at Iowa State University.

Crystal Hunnicutt was named research compliance officer in the Office of the Vice Provost for Research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She was an ethics educator at Wal-Mart. Hunnicutt is a former research compliance educator at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Hunnicutt holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is studying for a doctoral degree in education technology from the University of Arkansas.

Rachel Pell is the new associate vice president for news and media relations at Pennsylvania State University. She was a senior vice president at Kethum Public Relations in New York City.

Pell earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing at Penn State and later studied at the Center for European Studies at Maastricht University in The Netherlands.