The University of Rhode Island has had a nurse practitioner degree program since 1975. But the university has now graduated its first class in its post master’s acute care nurse practitioner certificate program. The four women in the program had previously completed master’s degree programs in nursing but returned to school for training in acute care which qualifies them to practice in emergency and clinical care.
The four women who are the first to complete the program are Debora Durkin, Kathleen Fava, Jennifer Ann Thiesen, and Leigh Whoriskey.
Last fall Steve A.N. Goldstein became provost at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He now has completed his leadership team of advisers and associate provosts. Three of the five members of the leadership team are women.
The University of Maryland is currently showing an exhibit entitled “Women on the Border: Maryland Perspectives of the Civil War.” The exhibit focuses on the lives of women living in Maryland at the time of the War Between the States. Included in the presentation are letters, diaries, photographs, drawings, sheet music, and rare books.
Elizabeth Novara, curator of historical documents of the special collection unit of the University of Maryland library, stated, “We have never looked at our Civil War collections through the lens of women’s history before. Women were activists. They organized fairs to raise money to support the troops and buy medical supplies. They also published political tracts and opinions.”
The University of Chicago and Northwestern University have established a new joint effort to recruit and retain women faculty in science and technology fields. The Chicago Collaboration for Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics will include several initiatives. The Navigating the Professoriate program is designed for tenure-track assistant professors in STEM fields. The program will use mentoring and other strategies to help women prepare for the tenuring process. There is also the Beyond Tenure program for women who are associate and full professors with tenure to help them manage their careers for future success.
Mary Harvey, associate provost for program development at the University of Chicago, stated, “This is partly about helping women advance into leadership roles. It’s also very much about helping them develop their networks. In some disciplines in the sciences, women are few and far between, and they feel a tremendous sense of isolation. It’s also about recruitment, because having a vigorous program like this in place will help us bring more women scientists onto our faculty.”
Sister Joel Read, president emerita of Alverno College in Milwaukee, received the Theodore M. Hesburg Award from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. Sister Reed was honored “for outstanding contributions and extended service to Catholic higher education.” The Hesburg Award is the oldest honor bestowed by the association. It is named after the former president of the University of Notre Dame.
Members of the men’s ice hockey teams at Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern University, and Harvard University met together at the State House in Boston to make a public declaration of their commitment to end violence against women. The event was organized by Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.
The hockey players united to take the White Ribbon Day Pledge, which reads in part, “From this day forward, I promise to be part of the solution in ending violence against women. I will promote respect, dignity, and equality.”
There has been anecdotal evidence that some women in Britain are turning to prostitution in order to pay for the higher fees charged by colleges and universities. For example, the English Collective of Prostitutes runs a London-based helpline. It reports that the number of calls it has received from college women has doubled in the past year.
Mildred Garcia has been chosen as the fifth president of California State University Fullerton. The appointment is effective on June 1. Since 2007, Dr. Gracia has been the president of California State University Dominguez Hills. She previously served as president of Berkeley College.
From time to time, Women in Academia Report will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. The links presented direct the reader to articles from many different points of view that deal with issues of women in higher education. The articles selected in no way reflect the views of the editorial board of WIAReport.
Naomi Long Madgett, professor emerita at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, has been named the 2012 Kresge Eminent Artist. The award, which comes with a $50,000 cash prize, was given to Professor Madgett for her “decades of commitment to originating, illuminating, and preserving poetry by African-Americans.” The award, which is funded by the Kresge Foundation, is administered by the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Toi Derricotte is a professor of English in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Derricotte is the author of five books of poetry and has published more than 1,000 poems. She is the co-founder of the Cave Canem Foundation, an organization of African American poets.
Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven books of poetry and several other works. Hirshfield has taught at Bennington College, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of San Francisco. She has been a visiting Poet-in-Residence at Duke University, the University of Alaska, the University of Virginia, and the University of Cincinnati.
Mary Semans, the great-granddaughter of Washington Duke, the industrialist and philanthropist for whom Duke University is named, served on the board of trustees at Duke University for 20 years. She died earlier this month at the age of 91.
The University of Connecticut board of trustees voted to include a wider groups of university employees who will be required to report incidents of sexual assault on campus. Under the old regulation, deans, department heads, directors, and supervisors were required to report any incidents that they witnessed or were made aware of by members of the campus community. Under the new guidelines, virtually all university employees are required to report such incidents.
Karen Brazell, the Goldwin Smith Graduate Professor Emerita of Japanese Literature and Theater at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, died earlier this month in an Ithaca hospital. She was 73 years old.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has announced three finalists for the position of provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. The finalists were selected from a group of 70 applicants. One of the three finalists is a woman.
Jacqueline G. Wexler, the former president of what is now Webster University in St. Louis and the former president of Hunter College in New York City, has died in Orlando, Florida. She was 85 years old.
The American Astronomical Society recently honored two women scholars.
C. Megan Urry, chair of the physics department at Yale University received the George Van Biesbroeck Prize. She was honored “for her tireless efforts to enhance the participation of women in astronomy and other scientific disciplines, through the organization of meetings, written works, lectures, and effective mentoring, done outside and in addition to her work as a scientist.” The citation for the award reads in part, “Through the years [Urry] has helped transform our field from one with a rather restrictive view of who belongs in the profession to one that is now held as an example for other disciplines on how to diversify the field. She did all this while at the same time achieving a distinguished career in astrophysics herself.”
Heather A. Knutson received the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy. The award is given for outstanding research and promise for future research to a woman astronomer who has received her Ph.D. within the past five years. Dr. Knutson’s research focuses on physical properties of planets outside of our solar system.
This coming May, Joyce Carol Oates, the celebrated author and the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of the Humanities and professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, will receive the inaugural Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement from Oregon State University. The award honors “a major American author who has created a body of critically acclaimed work and who has been a dedicated mentor to young writers.” The award comes with a $20,000 cash prize.
Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has been selected to receive the Philip Hauge Abelson Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The award will be presented at the association’s annual meeting in Vancouver this February. The association is honoring President Jackson for “extraordinary leadership of and contributions to the scientific community, government, universities, industries, and future generations of science and engineering professionals.”
Sarah Farrell, associate professor at the School of Nursing at the University of Virginia, received the inaugural Elsevier Exceptional Nursing Educator Award from Amsterdam-based Elsevier, a scientific publishing giant.
Elva Kaye Lance, director of bands at Mississippi State University, received the Edythe McArthur Outstanding Director Award from the Mississippi Bandmasters Association. She is the first woman director of bands at the university.
Dorothy Leidner was named an Association for Information Systems Fellow at the International Conference on Information Systems in Shanghai, China. Dr. Leidner is director of the Center for Information Systems Research in the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University. The honor is given to individuals for research, teaching, and service on regional, national, and global levels.
Valerie Krugh, an associate professor at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati, has been selected to receive the Leavey Award from the Freedoms Foundation. The award will be presented at a ceremony in Philadelphia in March.
One reason is that 25 percent of the faculty in the computer science department are women, which is a higher ratio than at most colleges and universities. Sara Sprenkle, an assistant professor of computer science at Washington and Lee, says that another key is introductory courses in the subject. Many women take the course at the university to fulfill general requirements. (All students at Washington and Lee must take either a computer science or mathematics course in order to graduate.) She reports that none of the women currently majoring in the subject, planned to do so when they came to Washington and Lee. “They took an introductory class and realized they were good at it,” Sprenkle said.
Kate Muir Welsh is the new director of the Social Justice Research Center at the University of Wyoming. The center promotes scholarly activity by faculty members, students, and staff related to social justice, without regard to the departments or disciplines of the people involved.
Joni Young, professor of accounting at the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico, was chosen as an editor for the prestigious international journal 
Michelle W. Woodhouse was named provost at the Fred W. Beazley Portsmouth Campus of Tidewater Community College in Virginia. The provost is the chief administrative officer and lead academic and student affairs administrator for their particular branch campus. The Portsmouth campus enrolls about 12,000 students.
Karen B. Peetz was elected chair of the board of trustees of Pennsylvania State University. The new post places Peetz in the proverbial hot seat as Penn State continues to deal with the sexual abuse scandal surrounding its football program. This week the Penn State faculty considered, but rejected, a no confidence resolution directed at the board of trustees.
Darcy Burgund is a member of the psychology department faculty. She is a graduate of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Burgund specializes in research on high-level visual cognition and memory.
Laura Smith teaches geography at Macalester. She is a graduate of Macalester College and holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Her current research is focused on mortgage foreclosure patterns in the Twin Cities and on issues of American Indian land ownership.
The Peace Corps has announced its annual rankings of the colleges and universities that produce the most graduates who volunteer for service in the Peace Corps. In 2011, there were 112 undergraduate alumni of the University of Colorado serving in the Peace Corps. This was the most of any college or university in the nation. The University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Florida were the only other universities with more than 100 alumni currently serving in the Peace Corps.
The Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers was founded in 1955. Over the years there have been several changes in the name of the organization to reflect the changing technological landscape. The organization is now known as SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
The University of Oklahoma has announced the promotion of two women to key positions.
Wendy Reed was named chair of the department of biological sciences at North Dakota State University. She joined the department in 2002 as an assistant professor. In 2009 she was promoted to associate professor and in 2010 was named associate dean of the College of Science and Mathematics.
Janet C.M. Eldred was named a Chellgren Endowed Professor at the University of Kentucky. She is a professor of English at the university. Chellgren Professors continue to teach in their discipline but also undertake a specific project meant to advance progressive reform of undergraduate education.
Ivana Petrovic, an assistant professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the University of Belgrade in Serbia, is spending the current semester as a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University in New York.
Nancy L. Ross was appointed chair of the department of geosciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. Dr. Ross is a professor of geosciences and since 2004 has served as associate dean for research, graduate affairs, and outreach in the university’s College of Sciences.
Christina Olsen was appointed Class of 1955 Director of the Williams College Museum of Art. Her appointment is effective May 1. She currently serves as director of education and public programs at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. She has held that position since 2008. Previously, she was a program officer for the Getty Foundation, where she directed the foundation’s grant programs to museums.
Andrea Backman was named chief academic officer at Rasmussen College in Minneapolis. She has been serving as director of new program development and academic approvals at the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at the University of Virginia. Previously, she was senior vice provost for faculty affairs at Strayer University.
Michelle Steiner was named director of the Center for Academic Program Support (CAPS) at the University of New Mexico. She has been serving as interim director and was previously the senior program manager of CAPS.
Trudie Kibbe Reed, president of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, has announced that she is stepping down. The university’s board has formed a search committee to find a replacement for Dr. Reed. No timetable has been given for when her resignation will take effect.
Barbara Lister-Sink was named director of the Salem College School of Music in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Since 2009 she has been serving as acting director and artistic director. Lister-Sink is also an artist-in-residence and a professor of piano at Salem College.