David Flory, who has been on the physics department faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University campus in Madison, New Jersey, for more than 40 years, was arrested earlier this week while patronizing a Starbucks in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Professor Flory has a vacation home in Santa Fe.
Police charged Flory with 40 counts of promoting prostitution. The prostitution ring involved about 200 women and more than 1,200 customers. The operation was conducted online at a web site called Southwest Companions. A spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department stated that Professor Flory maintained that he did not make any money off the venture and operated the Web site as “a safe place for guys to find female prostitutes.”
Dr. Flory joined the faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson in 1969. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Yeshiva University.
In the February 2011 issue of Inside FDU, Professor Flory was asked, “What profession other than your own would you most like to attempt, and what profession would you want nothing to do with?” He responded that he would like to try a career “in theatrical lighting design.” He went on to says that “as to professions that I would avoid like the plague, at the top of the list would probably be marketing and advertising, because they so often require you to misrepresent or distort reality in order to sell a product.”
He was also asked to complete the phrase, “People would be surprised to know that I. . .” There was no hint in his response that he had a secret life in another profession. Rather he stated that he was a scuba diver.
E.M. Broner, a respected feminist writer and former professor at Wayne State University, Sarah Lawrence College, Oberlin College, UCLA, and other educational institutions around the world, has died in New York City. She was 83 years old.
Sister Mary Sarah Galbraith has been chosen as the next president of Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee. She has been teaching history at the college since January of this year. For the previous two years, she was completing her doctoral studies at the University of Sydney in Australia.
The board of trustees of Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Florida, has chosen Carol Eaton as the educational institution’s next president. The board has authorized staff members to enter into salary negotiations with Dr. Eaton. If she accepts the post, Dr. Eaton will be the college’s first woman president.
The Oklahoma State University Board of Regents has bestowed the title of Regents Professor on three women scholars.
”¢ Shida Rastegari is a professor of agricultural economics. She has been on the university’s faculty since 1984. She also taught at the University of California at Davis and Ripon College in Wisconsin. Dr. Rastegari holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Iowa State University.
”¢ Estella Atekwana holds the Sun Chair in geology at Oklahoma State. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in geophysics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Ӣ Susan E. Little holds the Krull-Ewing Chair in veterinary parasitology at the university. She is a graduate of Cornell University. Dr. Little earned a doctor of veterinary medicine degree at Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. in parasitology at the University of Georgia.
Hang Lu, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was awarded the CSB2 Prize in Systems Biology presented by Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and the Council for Systems Biology. The award is presented annually to a young scientist for exceptional contributions to the development and implementation of new methods in biomedical research. Lu was honored for her work developing instruments for manipulating and studying living embryos and nematodes.
Debra A. McCartt, the former mayor of Amarillo, Texas, was honored by the naming of an endowed chair at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. The Honorable Debra A. McCartt Distinguished Professor of Public Service chair will be available for faculty at the university in the departments of criminal justice, emergency management administration, and public administration. Faculty selected for the honor will serve a three-year term.
Susan Enguidanos, the Hanson Family Trust Assistant Professor of Gerontology and an assistant professor of social work at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, received the Junior Faculty Career Development Award from the National Palliative Care Research Center. She was honored for her research on transitioning from hospital to home among palliative care patients. The award includes two years of financial support for her research.
Anna Scheyett was appointed dean of the University of South Carolina’s College of Social Work. She was associate dean for academic affairs at the College of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She will begin her new duties on August 1.
Deborah Watkins Bruner was named professor of nursing at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University. She will hold a dual appointment as associate director of cancer outcomes at the university’s Winship Cancer Institute. Since 2006 she was the Independence Professor in Nursing Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
Pinar Keskinocak was named the Joseph C. Mello Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has been serving as co-director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics at the university.
Angela Gronenborn was named Distinguished Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Pittsburgh. She was serving as the Rosalind Franklin Professor and chair of the department of structural biology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Deborah Feltz was named University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. She was the only woman among 10 faculty members named University Distinguished Professors. She has been serving as professor and chair of the Department of Kinesiology at Michigan State.
Helen Diggs was named director of the Laboratory Animal Resource Center at the Oregon State University in Corvallis. Since 2008, she has been director of the Lois Bates Acheson Veterinary Teaching Hospital and associate dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the university.
Julie Waters Steele was appointed director of the Reynolds Homestead Continuing Education Center on the Virginia Tech campus in Critz. She was an administrator in the division of student affairs at the main campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Previously, she was director of the student union at both Western Carolina University and Clemson University.
Donna Thomas was named director of the Thornton Athletics Student Life Center at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She has been serving as interim director for the past six months. She has been an administrator at the university since 1990.
Sara Rosen was promoted to senior vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Kansas. She has been serving as dean of graduate studies and professor of linguistics at the university. Professor Rosen has been a member of the faculty at the university since 1991.
Nicole Aldrich was named director of choral activities at Washington University in St. Louis. She will be the conductor for the university’s 65-member concert choir and will develop a new chamber choir.
By a unanimous vote of the board of trustees, Carol E. Lytch was elected the 11th president of the Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She will take office this August. She has been serving as assistant executive director of the Association of Theological Schools.
Peggy Kennedy was appointed to a one-year term as interim president of Minnesota State Community and Technical College. The college serves about 6,500 students on four campuses in Detroit Lakes, Fergus Falls, Moorhead, and Wadena. Kennedy has been serving as senior vice president for academic affairs and student development at St. Paul College. She has been an adminstrator at the college for the past 26 years and as a vice president since 1994.
The Oklahoma State University Board of Regents has approved the appointment of Natalie Shirley as president of the university’s Oklahoma City campus. Dr. Shirley will take office on August 1. Shirley was the secretary of commerce and tourism for the state of Oklahoma and served from 2007-11 as the executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.
Two women employees of Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit against the university and the state system of higher education. The women claim they faced retaliation after speaking out against a male superior.
Data from the Department of Education shows that women make up 43 percent of all full-time instructional faculty at degree-granting institutions in the United States. But at Stanford University, a new report on faculty diversity shows that women make up only 26.3 percent of the total faculty at the university.
In referring to the women faculty numbers, Karen Cook, vice provost for faculty development and diversity at Stanford, stated, “Of course there are more at the assistant professor level and fewer at the full professor level, but the numbers are moving in the right direction.”
This week a groundbreaking ceremony was held on the campus of Belmont Abbey College in suburban Charlotte, North Carolina, for what the college believes is the first maternity and postnatal residential facility for single mothers on a college campus. The 10,000-square-foot facility is being built on four acres of land donated by Benedictine monks.
Alane Karen Shanks was named president of Pine Manor College, the women’s college in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Since 2006, Dr. Shanks has served as vice president of administration and finance at Roxbury Community College. Before that appointment, she was associate dean for educational administration and finance at Harvard Medical School.
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Susan J. Birren, professor of biology and neuroscience at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, was named dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Birren joined the Brandeis faculty as an assistant professor of neurobiology in 1994. She concentrates her research on the study on the development of the human nervous system.
Trish Gorman was promoted to dean of the Jack Welch Management Institute and vice president for strategic planning at Chancellor University in Cleveland. She was dean of the faculty at the institute. She has previously taught at the business schools at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
Lori Gonzalez was named provost and executive vice chancellor at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Since 2005, she has been serving as dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Her appointment is effective in September. Dr. Gonzalez has been an administrator at the University of Kentucky since 1991.
U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann announced her candidacy for the presidency of the United States this week. Bachmann, who is the first Republican woman to be elected to the House of Representatives from Minnesota, represents a suburban district near the Twin Cities spanning six counties. Prior to her election to the House, she served in the Minnesota State Senate. The mother of five children, Bachmann has had 23 foster children in her home.
The board of trustees of Princeton University recently approved the hiring of 19 new faculty members. Three men were hired as full professors. Thirteen men and three women will join the Princeton faculty as assistant professors.
”¢ Danelle Devenport was named an assistant professor of molecular biology. She has been a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University. A graduate of Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, Dr. Devenport earned a master’s degree from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include cell polarity and morphogenesis.
Ӣ Jenny Greene will be an assistant professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton. She was an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Greene is a graduate of Yale University and earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University.
Ӣ Anna Zayaruzny was appointed an assistant professor of music. She was an assistant professor of music at New York University. Her research is focused in historical musicology. Dr. Zayaruzny is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University.
The University of New Mexico Press has announced that Hilda Raz is the new editor of its Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series. Raz recently stepped down as editor of Prairie Schooner, the literary journal she led since 1987. The author of 13 books, Raz was the Luschei Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. Her most recent book is What Happens (University of Nebraska Press, 2009).
MaryKatherine Callaway, director of the Louisiana State University Press, was elected president of the Association of American University Presses. Callaway has led the LSU Press since 2003. Previously, she was marketing director for the Johns Hopkins University Press.
Debra Houry, vice chair for research and associate professor of emergency medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, was recently installed as president of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. The 6,500-member society seeks to improve patient care by advancing research and education in emergency medicine.
The University of North Dakota in Grand Forks has named women to head two of its schools. Kathryn R.L. Rand was appointed dean of the School of Law and Denise Korniewicz was named dean of the College of Nursing.
Rose Bellanca was named president of Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was provost of the Florida campus of Northwood University. Previously, she served for six years as president of St. Clair Community County College in Port Huron, Michigan.
Jayathi Y. Murthy was named chair of the mechanical engineering department at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. The appointment is effective at the beginning of 2012. She will be the first woman to chair the department at the university.
Michelle Le Beau was named the Arthur and Marian Edelstein Professor at the University of Chicago. She was a professor of medicine and human genetics at the university. Professor Le Beau has published more than 400 academic papers on genetic abnormalities associated with leukemia.
Trudy Larson was appointed director of the School of Community Health Sciences at the University of Nevada in Reno. She has been serving as interim director for the past 10 months. Previously, she was associate dean, professor, and former chair of the department of pediatrics at the University of Nevada School of Medicine.
Next month, Irene Lasiecka, professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia, will receive the 2011 W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The prize, which includes a $10,000 cash award, is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of differential equations and control theory. Professor Lasiecka is the first woman to earn the prize, which was first awarded in 1994.
Huda Y. Zoghbi, director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital and the Baylor University College of Medicine, will be awarded the 2011 Neuroscience Prize from the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation. The award which includes a gold medal and a $500,000 prize, will be presented to Dr. Zoghbi this November at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. Dr. Zoghbi is being honored for her work in unlocking the genetic and molecular mysteries surrounding neurological disorders such as Rett syndrome and medulliblastomas.
Kathryn A. Hall was elected chair of the executive committee of the board of trustees at Princeton University. She is CEO and chief investment officer at Hall Capital Partners, a San Francisco-based investment firm. Hall, a 1980 graduate of Princeton, will be the first woman to head the university’s board of trustees.
At the University of Minnesota, Linda Cohen was elected chair of the board of regents. Cohen is a licensed psychologist and family therapist. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a master’s degree in the history of science at Harvard University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota.
Esther Brown, an assistant professor at the School of Nursing at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, received the 2011 Distinguished New Faculty Award from the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning.
Sonia Nieto, professor emerita in the department of teacher education and curriculum studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was selected as a laureate of Kappa Delta Pi, the international education honor society established in 1911. Membership in the laureate division of KDP is limited to 60 living individuals whose work exemplifies the highest ideals of education.
Kathy Beauregard, director of athletics at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, was named AD of the Year by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics. She originally was hired by the university in 1979 as a gymnastics coach.
Katherine L. Heilpern, chair of the department of emergency medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, received the 2011 Advancement of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Award from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.
Carolin Crawford, fellow of Emmanuel College and professor at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University in England, was named to deliver a series of six public lectures in London from November 2011 to June 2012 as the Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College. Some 354 years ago Sir Christopher Wren was appointed to the same position.
Naadu Mills, first lady of Ghana, received an honorary doctorate at Goodwin College in East Hartford, Connecticut. Mills was honored for devoting her life to the education of young girls in Ghana.