UMass Boston Names New Biz School Dean … Maine Loses an Education-Economic Development Leader
Posted April 26, 2022
By John O. Harney
Comings and Goings …
VENKY VENKATACHALAM
The University of Massachusetts Boston named University of South Dakota business school dean Venky Venkatachalam as the next dean of its College of Management. Venkatachalam will assume the Boston dean’s position from current interim dean Arindam Bandopadhyaya.
Previously, as a professor and associate dean at the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, Venkatachalam coauthored a NEJHE piece on New Hampshire’s Green Launching Pad 1.0 and 2.0 with Ross Gittell, now president of Bryant University.
The University of New Haven appointed Elizabeth B. Francis-Connolly, who is currently dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Health and Science at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, to be dean of the School of Health Sciences in New Haven, effective July 15.
Francis-Connolly earlier served as dean of the Westbrook College of Health Professions at Maine’s University of New England and director of Eastern Michigan University’s School of Health Sciences.
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) announced that former Georgia State University President Mark P. Becker, known as a champion of equity and student success, as the next president of the association, effective Sept. 1, 2022.
He will succeed Peter McPherson, who is retiring after more than 16 years in charge of the research, policy and advocacy organization whose members include 244 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems and affiliated organizations.
Johns Hopkins University Executive Director for Talent Acquisition Ian Matthew-Clayton was appointed vice president and chief inclusion, diversity and equity officer at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, effective April 25, 2022.
Tom Hopcroft announced he will step down as president and CEO of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC), posts he has held since 2008. Kate McLeod, a vice president at MassTLC, will serve as interim CEO while the group launches a formal CEO search.
Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors announced he will retire at the end of the year after leading the the pro-business organization since 1994. As a member of the Governor’s Economic Recovery Committee,
Connors helped develop policies to stabilize Maine’s economy during the Covid-19 pandemic. Before joining the chamber, he served as city manager of Presque Isle and commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation.
Passings …
HENRY BOURGEOIS
Henry Bourgeois, the former CEO of the Alfond Scholarship Foundation and before that, leader of the Maine Development Foundation (MDF) and co-founder of the Maine Compact for Higher Education, died at age 78.
While leading the MDF for 21 years, Bourgeois worked to bring together Maine’s business, government, education and community leaders to address state economic development through programs such as the Maine Aspirations Foundation, Leadership Maine and the Coalition for Excellence in Education.
He convened heavy-hitters from across Maine in an effort to position “College as a Right and Responsibility for all Maine People.”
He received a NEBHE Excellence Award in 2010. As the Portland Press Herald noted aptly in its obituary, “Henry was a sweet, kind, soft spoken man who was devoted to his family and was immensely proud of his children and grandchildren.”