Three Women Appointed to Provost Positions at Colleges and Universities

Karen An-Hwei Lee was named provost of Wheaton College in Illinois. Dr. Lee will also be a professor of English. She has been serving as vice provost of assessment and institutional effectiveness at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.

Dr. Lee is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in English. She holds a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing from Brown and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Katia Passerini was appointed provost and executive vice president at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. Dr. Passerini served as the Lesley H. and William L. Collins Distinguished Chair and Dean of the Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Earlier, she was dean of the Albert Dorman Honors College at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. Dr. Passerini is the coauthor of Information Technology for Small Business: Managing the Digital Enterprise (Springer, 2012).

Dr. Passerini holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Rome. She earned an MBA and a Ph.D. in information systems from George Washington University.

Mary Pedersen has been named to serve as the next provost and executive vice president at Colorado State University. She will begin her new job on August 1. Dr. Pederson has been serving as interim provost at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Earlier, she was department chair for the food science and nutrition program.

Dr. Pedersen earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Los Angeles.