Eight Women Who Have Been Appointed to High-Level Administrative Posts in the Academic World

Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu was appointed director of the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University in New Jersey. She has been at Princeton since 2003 and was most recently dean of Whitman College.

Dr. Graves-Bayazitoglu is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. She holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and taught at the University of Michigan and Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

Portia Vescio was named  archivist for special collections at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico. She was the assistant director of the University Archives and Historical Collections at Michigan State University. She served on the staff at Michigan State for 14 years.

Vescio is a graduate of the Massachusetts of Institute of Technology, where she majored in chemistry. She earned a master of library and information sciences degree from Indiana University.

Laura Woodworth-Ney was promoted to executive vice president and provost at Idaho State University in Pocatello. She was vice president for academic affairs. Dr. Woodworth-Ney is the former chair of the history department at the university and was co-director of the women’s studies program. She has served on the faculty at Idaho State since 1999.

Dr. Woodworth-Ney is a graduate of the University of Idaho, where she majored in English. She holds a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Washington. She is the author of Mapping Identity: The Creation of the Couer D’Alene Indian Reservation, 1805-1902 (University Press of Colorado, 2004) and Women in the American West (ABC-CLIO, 2008).

Alison Matthiessen was named director of communications for the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke. She was communications coordinator for the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Virginia Tech.

Matthiessen holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications from Virginia Tech.

Katie Davidson is the new director of the International Center at the University of North Dakota. She is the former coordinator for international study programs at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University.

Davidson holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and an MBA from Iowa State University.

Sherie Cornish Gordon was named director of athletics at Albany State University in Georgia. She has been serving as the senior associate commissioner for external business administration for the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Gordon holds a bachelor’s degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore and a master’s degree in sports management from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Brett Harris has been selected to serve as the ombudsperson at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Since 2015, she served as the ombudsperson at the University of Mississippi.

Harris earned a bachelor’s degree at Idaho State University and a juris doctorate from the University of Idaho, where she specialized in Native American law.

Margaux Cowden was appointed director of the Manasseh Cutler Scholars Program at Ohio University in Athens. The program is a living/learning community aimed at developing leaders dedicated to civic responsibility.

Dr. Cowden has taught at Temple University in Philadelphia and Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Ohio University and holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Irvine.