published: July 17, 2023
Laura Rosenbury, Barnard College President
A leading women and gender legal theorist, Laura Rosenbury is Barnard College’s ninth president. She began her tenure on June 12, 2023.
Previously, she served for eight years as the Dean and Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law at University of Florida Levin College of Law. She was the first woman in that role.
One of her goals was to raise the national and international profile of Florida’s flagship law school. Under her leadership, UF Law extended its reach around the globe, increased incoming applications by 200%, enrolled seven of the most accomplished and diverse classes in UF Law’s 113-year history, and hired 39 new faculty members. Since 2016, UF Law has jumped 27 spots in the U.S. News rankings and ranks among the top 25 law schools in the nation.
Before joining the UF Law community, Rosenbury was a professor of law and vice dean at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. She also has served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School and University of Chicago Law School.
Rosenbury’s research and teaching focus on the law of private relationships, exploring how law and social norms interact in family law, employment discrimination law, and property law. Her work has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Review, Cornell Law Review, and in many other journals and books.
Rosenbury was elected to the American Law Institute in 2010 and was named a fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2014. In addition, she has taught courses on negotiation, non-adversarial communication, team building, and leadership for practicing lawyers and other executives.
Prior to entering academia, Rosenbury was a litigation associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City and clerked for Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Rosenbury received her A.B. summa cum laude in women’s studies from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she served as a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Outside of work, she enjoys gardening and traveling. If at all possible, she also completes the New York Times crossword puzzle and spelling bee every day.
Minouche Shafik, President of Columbia University
Source: “Meet Minouche Shafik”, Official Bio, Retrieved, July 17, 2023 from Columbia University [https://www.columbia.edu/content/minouche-shafik]
Nemat Minouche Shafik became the 20th president of Columbia University on July 1, 2023. She is a distinguished economist who for more than three decades has served in senior leadership roles across a range of prominent international and academic institutions.
President Shafik was born in Alexandria, Egypt. When she was 4 years old, her family fled the country during the political and economic upheaval of the mid-1960s. Her father, a scientist, found work in the United States, where he had done his PhD. President Shafik and her sister attended numerous schools in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, and she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and politics in 1983. She was awarded a Master of Science in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1986, followed by Doctor of Philosophy in economics from St Antony’s College, Oxford University, in 1989.
Following her Oxford years, President Shafik began her career at the World Bank. By age 36, she had become the bank’s youngest-ever vice president. During the early 2000s, she held academic appointments at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Economics Department at Georgetown University. In 2008, she was appointed Permanent Secretary of the U.K.’s Department for International Development, where she led an overhaul in British foreign aid. Next, she served as Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and then as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, where she sat on all the monetary, financial, and prudential policy committees and was responsible for a balance sheet of over £500 billion (equivalent of approximately $605 billion). In 2017, she returned to academia as president of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Throughout her career, President Shafik has been at the center of efforts—often during pivotal, high-stakes moments—to address some of the world’s most complex and disruptive challenges. At the World Bank, she worked on the institution’s first-ever report on the environment and later advised governments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the height of the “Make Poverty History” campaign, President Shafik helped secure the UK’s commitment to giving 0.7% of GDP in aid and focused it on fighting poverty in the poorest countries in the world. She worked on both the European debt crisis and the Arab Spring while she was at the IMF. At the Bank of England, she led work on fighting misconduct in financial markets and was responsible for the contingency planning around the Brexit referendum. At LSE, she has encouraged academic work on how to rethink the social contract for the modern economy.
Thomas Arbuckle – is Associate Director, Campus Service Alliance of Northen Manhattan (CSANM) and Executive Assistant to the President and Board Liasion, Union Theological Seminary in April. The CSANM is an emerging consortium of mission-aligned student serving institutions working to increase the quality of campus services and decrease associated costs. Arbunkle graduated from Columbia University with a BA, Music and Pre-Law. He is originally from Jackson, Tennessee.
Rosina Barba is Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Manhattan School of Music, beginning June 15. Barba, who comes to MSM with 30 years of experience in finance and operations at non-profit and corporate organizations, will be responsible for the School’s financial, facilities, and IT functions, including oversight of the annual budget and liaising with the President, senior leadership, and Board of Trustees. Barba formerly served as the Ms. Foundation for Women’s chief operating officer, where she oversaw all finance, technology, and administrative functions. She earned her bachelor’s degree cum laude at SUNY Albany.
Teri Harris has been appointed as Director of Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and will oversee all aspects of Avery’s operations, including collection development, research services, access services, art properties, digitization and exhibition loan programs, facilities management, and the Avery Index. Harris first joined Avery Library in 2015 as curator for the Avery Classics rare books collections. Since 2022, she has served as the Head of Avery Classics, Drawings & Archives, and has managed crucial digitization efforts to increase access for researchers across the globe.
Joe Maybloom – has been promoted from his role as Senior Director or Enrollment to Chief enrollment Officer and Associate Dean of Student Success. In this role, Maybloom will lead the institution’s recruitment efforts and will work with senior leadership and the admissions team to build a robust enrollment funnel for JTS’s undergraduate program, List College, and its four graduate schools. Maybloom holds a master’s degree in Theatre from Hunter College. He graduated as class valedictorian from Marymount Manhattan College with a BA in Theatre History and Theatre Performance and a minor in Mathematics.
KerryAnn O’Meara
Teachers College has announced the appointment of KerryAnn O’Meara—an internationally recognized scholar and expert on faculty affairs and diversity, equity, and inclusion—as its next Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College, effective July 5, 2023.
Prior to TC, O’Meara served as Professor of Higher Education and a Distinguished Scholar Teacher, and as Special Assistant to the Provost for Strategic Initiatives at UMD. There, she developed campus-wide DEI onboarding experienced by more than 30,000 members of the UMD community. Read more >
Mira Sawlani-Joyner began her role as The Riverside Church’s Minister of Justice, Advocacy and Change in May. Rev. Mira Sawlani-Joyner is a daughter of immigrants, a pastor, a preacher, an educator, and a public theologian. Mira received her Master of Divinity degree from Wesley Theological Seminary, where she earned an Excellence in Public Theology award and a Community Life Award. Mira has served on the launch team of Resurrection City, a Queer and Black-led church, as the former Community Pastor at Forefront Church NYC, and most recently as the Minister for Spiritual Development and Care at Middle Collegiate Church.
The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine welcomed Rev. Eva Suarez as Canon for Community Engagement in Nov 22. Prior to this role, she was Associate Rector at St. James’ Church on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. After studying philosophy and religion at Columbia University, she earned her M.Div from Union Theological Seminary and a Masters in Social Work from the Silberman School of Social Work at CUNY Hunter. Originally from Washington, D.C., she lives on the West Side with her husband Robert, a photographer.
Sasha Wells is the Executive Director of Columbia’s Double Discovery Center. She started in this role in 2022. With Columbia since 2011, she has worked in the Office of Alumni & Development and the Office of the Dean at Columbia College managing alumni leadership boards, key College-wide initiatives and serving as deputy chief of staff to former Columbia College Dean, James J. Valentini. Prior to joining Columbia, Sasha worked at the American Red Cross in Greater New York leading youth development programs and at the National MS Society building its volunteer programs. She earned a B.S. from Cornell University and a Masters from Teachers College. Sasha loves creating art, international travel, and is the Center’s self-proclaimed resident photographer. Read her interview on Columbia Neighbors.
MORE NEWS
Kate Orff –
faculty director at the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes at Columbia Climate School and professor and director of the Urban Design Program at GSAPP, is one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2023.
Amy Stuart Wells –
was appointed as the Dean of Bank Street College’s Graduate School of Education, effective August 30, 2023. Wells will depart Teachers College after more than 22 years on the College’s faculty, building on her time as a student in the Sociology and Education program where she would later teach. Her books include “Both Sides Now: The Story of School Desegregation’s Graduates” and “Stepping Over the Color Line: African American Students in White Suburban Schools.”