Joliet Junior College in Illinois has announced three finalists to become the next president of the two-year institution. Gena Proulx, who was president of the college since 2006, died in August after a battle with cancer. She was Joliet’s first woman president.
The three finalists for president are all women. All three are currently community college presidents.
Debra Daniels is the president of San Bernardino College in California. She is a graduate of Ferris State University in Michigan and holds a master’s degree and an educational doctorate from the University of Illinois.
Maureen Murphy is president of San Jacinto College South in Texas. Previously she was vice president of instruction and student development at Rappahannock Community College in Virginia. Dr. Murphy is a graduate of the University of Louisville. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Missouri and a Ph.D. in American studies from Saint Louis University.
Patricia Adkins is president of Yuba College in California. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Southern Illinois University and a doctorate in educational administration from Illinois State University.
The board of trustees of Joliet Junior College is expected to make its decision later this month.
Update: Debra Daniels was selected as president. She will take office on March 1.
Barbara D. Savage, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, is the recipient of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion from the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. She was honored for her book 
Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, was selected to receive the 2012 Leadership Award from the American Association of Community Colleges. In announcing the award, Walter G. Bumphus, president of the American Association of Community Colleges said, “She has challenged all of us to build a better educational system that aspires to the highest standards.”
Sherry Rehman, the new Pakistani ambassador to the United States, is a 1985 graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She double majored in art history and political science. She went on to pursue graduate studies at Sussex University.
This past summer, John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., announced that all incoming first-year students would be housed in single-sex residence halls. In the fall of 2012, all first- and second-year students will be in single-sex dormitories. Eventually, all residence halls on campus will be single-sex dorms.
Tess Chakkalakal is an assistant professor of Africana studies and English at Bowdoin College in Maine. She is developing an interdisciplinary curriculum for teaching the literature of the Jim Crow era.
Sharon Raynor is the Mott University Distinguished Professor at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. She will be conducting research on oral history projects.
Flavia Laviosa, senior lecturer in Italian studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, is the founder and editor of the new Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies. Dr. Laviosa states the mission of the new journal is “informing the world about Italian films, especially the less popular ones, and how Italian cinema has inspired other cinemas.”
Bonnie Neas, vice president for information technology at North Dakota State University, is retiring later this month. She has been the head of the IT division at the university since 2007. Previously, she served as associate vice president for federal government relatons. She has been on the staff at NDSU since 1984.
The University of Pennsylvania received a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to establish the Penn Center for Innovation in Personalized Breast Cancer Screening. Katrina Armstrong, chief of the division of internal medicine at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, and her team will use clinical, genomic, and imaging information to guide the use of novel personalized breast cancer screening strategies that are aimed at reducing false positive diagnoses.
Ann Stuart, chancellor of Texas Woman’ University in Denton, had donated $120,000 to the university to establish the Ann Stuart Fund to underwite the Chancellor’s Alumni Excellence Award. The fund will be used to bring the annual award winner to campus to share his or her experiences with the campus community. The program will be funded through 2032.
Susan Krum, assistant professor for the UCLA Health Center, received a $450,000 grant from Susan G. Komen for the Cure for a study to determine if a chemical commonly found in plastic bottles and food packaging is a factor in the increased risk of breast cancer. The chemical, bisphenol A, has been linked to cancer in animal studies. Dr. Krum’s research will investigate whether contact with the chemical stimulates breast cancer tumor growth.
The University of Connecticut Health Center has announced the appointment of two women to its faculty.
Christina Stevenson was named an assistant professor of surgery. A surgical oncologist, she specializes in breast cancer and tumors of the thyroid and adrenal glands. She earned her medical degree at George Washington University and was a fellow in surgical oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Karen Hook is an assistant professor of medicine with clinical expertise in anemia, blood cancers, and platelet disorders. She has been serving as the chief fellow in the division of hematology/oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
Constantia Constantinou, director of the Stephen B. Luce Library at State University of New York’s Maritime College in Throggs Neck, New York, was named Distinguished Librarian by the SUNY board of trustees. She is only the fourth person to ever received the designation in the SUNY system. Constantinou has been director of the Luce Library since 2001.
Micaela Diaz-Sanchez is a new assistant professor of Latina/o studies at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, where she was selected as Faculty Member of the Year by the Multicultural Student Affairs Office.
Melissa Henretta was named clinical assistant professor of obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive medicine at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine in New York.
Gretchen Dwyer was named vice president for college advancement at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, effective in January. Since 2004, she has been the senior director of campaign and leadership giving at Bennington College in Vermont.
Katrice A. Albert, vice provost for equity, diversity, and community outreach at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, was recently named to the national board of directors of the nonprofit organization, Volunteers of America.
Carla Mazzarelli was named vice president for academic and student affairs at Suffolk County Community College in Selden, New York. She was associate dean of academic affairs at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Dawn Forbes Murphy was appointed director of summer sessions and certificate programs for the Office of University Outreach at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. She has served as program manager for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and director of student services for the School of Nursing at North Carolina A&T.
Severine Autesserre, an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College in New York City, won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. The award is one of five Grawemeyers given out annually by the University of Louisville. The award includes a $100,000 prize.
Leslie Ungerleider, director of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at the National Institute of Mental Health, won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology. She will share the award with Mortimer Mishkin, a colleague at he National Institute of Mental Health.
Dorothy Yates, associate vice president for research at the University of Wyoming, received the Herbert B. Chermside Award for Distinguished Contribution to Research Administration from the Society of Research Administrators (SRA). Mike MaCallister, president of SRA, stated, Dorothy is the avatar of a research administrator.”
Katherine Bergeron, professor of music and dean of the college at Brown University, received the 2011 Otto Kinkeldey Award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Musicology Society. She was honored for her book, 
Cynthia Carlton Thompson, professor of graphic communication systems and technological studies at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, was honored for Exemplary and Outstanding Services by the Association of Technology Management and Applied Engineering.
The Louise Herrington School of Nursing at Baylor University has announced the appointment of Shelley F. Conroy as its new dean, effective January 1, 2012. Dr. Conroy is dean and professor in the College of Health Professions at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia. Previously, she was dean of the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke College of Health Professions at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.
President Obama has nominated Barbara K. Rimer to chair the President’s Cancer Panel, the three-member committee which monitors the nation’s cancer policies and programs and advises the president on cancer-related issues.
New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that 3.4 percent of all women ages 15 to 24 dropped out of high school from October 2008 to October 2009. This is only slightly lower than the rate for men which stood at 3.5 percent. Some 184,000 women dropped out of high school in the one-year period.
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Thelma Scott-Skillman, president of Folsom Lake College in California, has announced that she will step down at the end of the academic year. Dr. Scott-Skillman is the only president the college has ever had. She was appointed in 2001 and led the college through the process of full accreditation in 2004. Today, the community college near Sacramento enrolls about 8,800 students.
Joe Ann Lever, dean emerita of the College of Arts and Sciences and associate professor emerita of biology at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has died at the age of 75.
Susan Halabi, an associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at the Duke University School of Medicine, is using the profits of her textbook to fund cancer research. Dr. Halabi is an expert in the design and analysis of clinical trails. At Duke she has been working on clinical trials for research on renal, bladder, and prostate cancer.
New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that in the 2010-11 academic year there were 394,898 instructional staff at publicly operated degree-granting institutions in the United States. There were an additional 171,652 instructional faculty at private, nonprofit degree granting institutions.
Recommendations for breast cancer screening are typically made based solely on a woman’s age. But researchers will develop a model that includes factors such as personal and family history, women’s concerns about radiation exposure, and breast density. Researchers plan to spend three years developing the model and then to conduct a national study to determine its effectiveness. The aim is to have the model available for widespread use within five or six years.
Maria C. Katapodi, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, was awarded a three-year, $900,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for a research project to develop methods to increase cancer screening by young breast cancer survivors and their female relatives who are at high risk of developing breast cancer.
Tricia Bent-Goodley, chair of the Community, Administration, and Policy Practice Sequence at the Howard University School of Social Work, received an award for Distinguished Recent Contributions in Social Work from the Council on Social Work Education. Dr. Bent-Goodley was honored for her book, 
Monica Perales, an associate professor of history at the University of Houston, has been selected to receive the Kenneth Jackson Award for the Best Book on North American Urban History from the Urban History Association. Professor Perales was honored for her book, 
Linda H. Pololi, senior scientist at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, received the 2011 Women in Medicine and Science Leadership Development Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Kimberly K. Ruebel, associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the College of Education and Health Professions of the University of Texas at Arlington, was named the 2011 Outstanding Professor of Middle Level Education by the National Professors of Middle Level Education, an affiliate of the Association for Middle Level Education.
Estela Mara Bensimon, professor of education and co-director of the Center for Urban Education at the Rossier School of Education at the University of California, received the 2011 Founders Service Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Council on Ethnic Participation. The award was given to acknowledge Dr. Bensimon’s commitment to promoting access, opportunity, and equity for students of color.
Jill Beech, who recently retired from the Georgia and Phillip Hoffman Chair in Medicine and Equine Reproduction at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, received the Distinguished Education Award from the American Association of Equine Practitioners.
Dedra Cantrell, chief information officer for Emory University Healthcare, received the 2011 Innovator of the Year Award from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).
Karyn Purvis, director of the Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University, received the 2011 James Hammerstein Award from the New York-based charity Only Make Believe. The award is given to individuals who have “displayed outstanding dedication to children in need.”
Martha Finnemore, professor of political science and international affairs, was named University Professor at George Washington University in the nation’s capital. There are currently nine University Professors at George Washington University. Professor Finnemore is only the second woman to receive the highest faculty designation awarded by the university. She has been on the university’s faculty since 1992.