Board of Trustees negotiate employment contract with presidential candidates

Sarahy Lopez, News Editor

Gloria J. Gibson was named Senior Vice President for academic affairs and Provost at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She started her job on Jan 5, 2015. Dr. Gibson has been serving as a professor of communications studies at the University of Northern Iowa. She served as executive vice president and provost at the university until June 2014. Before joining the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa, Dr. Gibson was a professor and dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Arkansas State University. Earlier in her career, she taught at Indiana University in Bloomington. In her present position of senior vice president and provost, Gibson served as the senior administrative officer and chief academic officer reporting directly to the president.

Sukhwant Jhaj serves as the Dean of Undergraduate Education at Portland State University, Portland Oregon. Trained as an architect, Jhaj uses design thinking to discover new solutions for challenges facing higher education. Jhaj worked on reTHINK PSU, a campus-wide effort to deliver an education that serves more students with better outcomes while containing costs through curricular innovation, community engagement and effective use of technology. Student success is a vital part of his goal and helping them achieve degree completion. Jhaj also helped develop online flexible degrees, bringing the school about $50 million in revenue.

Carlos Medina is Vice Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer of the State University of New York (SUNY). Since August 2011, Medina has led SUNY’s efforts in promoting and advancing the university’s diversity goals and ensuring that they are properly captured within all university policies and procedures. He provides leadership and strategic direction to SUNY campuses in connection with the recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and administrators who come from groups within our society that are underrepresented in higher education and at SUNY.

Maria Guajardo currently works at Soka University, a private liberal arts university of about 8,000 students. She was the dean of the faculty of international liberal arts and was promoted to deputy vice-president in 2016. Guajardo does research in higher education, international education, and educational leadership. Their current project is ‘Women’s leadership in cultural and cross-cultural settings.’ Guajardo was the first female and non-Japanese dean at Soka University, supporting leadership development for female faculty members.