Massachusetts College of Art and Design named Dawn Barrett to be its next president, succeeding Kay Sloan, who will retire after 15 years as president. Barrett is currently dean of the Architecture and Design Division at Rhode Island School of Design. MassArt trustees named Sloan president emerita. She created The New Partnership for MassArt, a pioneering financial and governance model that leverages strengths of both public and private higher education.
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Margot Rogers, former chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, will become vice chair and senior advisor to the Parthenon Group Education Center of Excellence. Before that, Rogers was an executive at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s College Ready education strategy and staff realignment, and served on the education division’s investment committee and strategic leadership team.
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The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) named seven new directors and elected Keene State College President Helen Giles-Gee to chair its board, succeeding Pomona College President David Oxtoby. Other new AAC&U directors with New England ties include Smith College President Carol Christ and Harvard University professor of government and sociology Theda Skocpol.
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The Boston-based nonprofit Women Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology (WEST) appointed Ilene Fischer as executive director. Fischer joins WEST from Enagility LLC, a performance and consulting firm focusing on organizational change, where she served as managing director.
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Norm Solomon, dean of Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business, announced he will step down at the end of the academic year in June after a decade of service. After a yearlong sabbatical, Solomon will return to Fairfield in fall 2012 to teach full-time and conduct research.
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