Five Women Faculty Members Who Are Assuming New Assignments in Higher Education

Olivia Law-DelRosso, who teaches in the department of management in the College of Business Administration at Kansas State University, was given the added duties of assistant dean for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. She came to Kansas State in 2010.

A native of New Zealand, Dr. Law-DelRosso holds a bachelor’s degree in  psychology, a master of public administration degree and a doctorate in higher education student affairs, all from Kansas State University.

Caree A. Banton is the new director of the African and African American studies program at the Univerity of Arkansas. She is an associate professor of African diaspora history, who is jointly appointed in the department of history and the African American studies program. Dr. Banton is the author of More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of the Liberian Republic, 1865–1912 (Cambridge University Press, 2019). She joined the faculty at the Univerity of Arkansas in 2013.

Dr. Banton is a graduate of Grambling State University in Louisiana, where she double majored in history and public administration. She earned master’s degrees at the University of New Orleans, the University of Ghana, and Vanderbilt University. Dr. Banton holds a Ph.D. in history from Vanderbilt University.

Maria Fitzpatrick, professor of economics and public policy in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was given the added duties as associate vice provost for social sciences. Professor Fitzpatrick also serves as director of the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs.

Professor Fitzpatrick, who came to Cornell in 2011, received her bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Elise Boxer, an assistant professor of Native American studies at the University of South Dakota, was named the director of the Institute of American Indian Studies at the university. Dr. Boxer is the former president of the American Indian Studies Association.

Dr. Boxer is a graduate of Washington State Univerity, where she doubled majored in social studies and history. She earned a master’s degree in American history from Utah State University and a Ph.D. in American Indian history at Arizona State University.

Karen Lewis is the new director of Washington State University Extension’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Program. Lewis has served as a locally-based extension specialist in Washington’s Columbia Basin for more than 30 years. She has led the university’s Tree Fruit Extension Team since 2015.

Professor Lewis holds a bachelor’s degree in plant science and a master’s degree in horticulture from the University of Arizona.