Eight Women Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions in Higher Education

Aimee Arias has been named dean of the School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, effective July 1. She has been serving as associate dean of research and creative activity in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University.

Dr. Arias received a bachelor’s degree in international relations from George Washington University. She earned a master’s degree in inter-American affairs and a doctorate in international studies from the University of Miami.

Mary Lois White was appointed dean of the College of Business at Louisiana State University-Shreveport. She has been serving as interim dean since 2021. Dr. White has been a faculty member at the university since 2008 and in 2019, she was named the Armand and Lynn Roos Professor of Business and Health Administration.

Dr. White holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in economics from Florida State University.

Ruth Wittmann-Price has been appointed dean of the W. Cary Edwards School of Nursing and Health Professions at Thomas Edison State University in New Jersey. Most recently, Dr. Wittmann-Price served as a professor of nursing and an undergraduate programs chair at Jefferson College of Nursing in Philadelphia. Earlier, she served as the founding dean of the School of Health Sciences at Francis Marion University in South Carolina.

Dr. Wittman-Price earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Felician University in Lodi, New Jersey. She holds a master’s degree with a specialty in perinatal clinical nursing from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in nursing science from Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Frances Vavrus has been named vice provost and dean of the International Division at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She joined the faculty University of Minnesota in 2008 and is a professor in the department of organizational leadership, policy, and development in the College of Education and Human Development at the university. Previously, she was a faculty member for eight years at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York.

Dr. Varvus is a graduate of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mary Crossley was named interim dean of the School of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, effective July 1. She joined the faculty in 2005 and previously served as dean of the law school. Professor Crossley is the author of Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability, and Health (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Professor Crossley is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where she majored in history. She earned a juris doctorate at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Maria P. Gindhart will assume the position of dean of the College of Arts and Media at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. She has been serving as associate dean of the College of Arts at Georgia State University.

Dr. Gindhart is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Melina Hale has been appointed the next dean of the College at the University of Chicago, effective July 1. A faculty member since 2002, Dr. Hale currently serves as the William Rainey Harper Professor in the department of organismal biology and anatomy and as a vice provost of the university.

Professor Hale is a graduate of Duke University in North Carolina, where she majored in zoology. She earned a Ph.D. in organismal biology and anatomy from the University of Chicago.

Nicole Dafoe will be the next dean of the College of Engineering and Science at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. Dr. Dafoe, who has worked at the university since 2012, has served as an interim dean since January 2022.

A native of Port Huron, Michigan, Dr. Dafoe is a plant molecular biologist. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology in from Grand Valley State University in Michigan and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Victoria in Canada.