Six Women Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions

Cinnamon Piñon Carlarne will be the nineteenth president and dean of Albany Law School in New York, effective July 1. She is the associate dean for faculty and intellectual life at Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. She joined the faculty there in 2011. Earlier, she was an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law from 2008 to 2011.

Carlarne is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. She earned a juris doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley. She also holds a master’s degree in environmental change and management from the University of Oxford in England, where she was a Marshall Scholar.

Ruth A. Hodges has been named dean of the library and information services at South Carolina State University’s Miller F. Whittaker Library. She has served as interim dean since 2016. Prior to coming to South Carolina State University, Dr. Hodges worked at the National Institutes of Health, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Academy of Sciences, Howard University, and the District of Columbia General Hospital.

Dr. Hodges is a graduate of South Carolina State University, where she majored in biology. She holds a master of library and information science degree and a master’s degree in biology from Atlanta University and a Ph.D. in information studies from Florida State University.

Brittany Schaffer was appointed dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Belmont University in Nashville, effective May 1. She has been head of artist and label partnerships for Spotify Nashville.

Schaffer is a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Homewood, Alabama.

Elaine Gagliardi will serve as the dean of the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana. She has served as interim dean since June 2022 and has been a faculty member at the school since 1995.

Professor Gagliardi is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in economics. She earned a juris doctorate at the University of Montana and a master of law degree from New York University.

Kelley Brock-Simmons has been chosen as the new dean of the College of Education at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia, effective June 1. Before coming to Brenau in 2015, Dr. Brock-Simmons was the chief operating officer for The Sunshine House, a company focused on early childhood education.

Dr. Brock-Simmons holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Texas A&M University-Commerce. She earned a doctorate in special education from American University in Washington, D.C.

Dayna Touron was appointed dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, effective July 1. Currently, she is a professor of psychology and associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research in cognitive psychology focuses on metacognition and memory in older adulthood.

Dr. Touron is a graduate of Maryville College in Tennessee. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University in New York and did postdoctoral research at the Georgia Institute of Technology.