CEO on the move
John Avendano will become the sixth president of Florida State College at Jacksonville, as of July 1. He is currently president of Kankakee Community College (KCC) in Illinois, which he has led since 2009. Under his leadership, KCC established the Miner South Extension Center, the Manufacturing and Industrial Technology Center and the Advanced Technology Education Center. Avendano has worked in higher education for 26 years. Before becoming KCC president, he was associate dean of student life at Waubonsee Community College (Illinois) — which he also attended earlier in his academic career and played baseball — and vice president of academic affairs and student development at Illinois Central College.
Kudos
Belinda Miles, president of Westchester Community College in New York, has been named one of 35 women who have changed higher education by Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Selected leaders in the field of education tackled “some of higher education’s toughest challenges, exhibiting extraordinary leadership skills and making a positive difference in their respective communities,” according to the magazine.
Obituary
Janet Lieberman, a professor at LaGuardia Community College in New York who designed the first public high school college collaborative model to help underserved students graduate from high school and go to college, passed away on March 19. She was 97.
Lieberman taught throughout New York City schools, serving LaGuardia/CUNY as assistant to the president and associate dean of faculty in the 1970s. In 1974, she founded LaGuardia’s “middle college,” which brought high schoolers into community college for their diploma and associate in arts degree. In 2000, she teamed with Cecilia Cunningham, then principal of the Middle College High School, to create the early college high school model, which helps underachieving students in grades 11 and 12 take college courses and complete an associate degree.
Lieberman received the 1989 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Higher Education, and the 2004 Harold W. McGraw Prize in Higher Education.
Appointments
Shawn Belling is now chief information officer at Madison College in Wisconsin. He served as interim CIO for eight months. His prior experience includes senior consultant at a management-consulting firm and several vice president positions. Belling teaches courses on agile projects, general project management and managing project teams at the University of Wisconsin- Platteville and UW-Madison.
Mitchell Levy is now associate vice president of academic affairs at the College of Southern Maryland. He brings more than 36 years of experience in higher education, having served as vice president of branch campus management, vice president of enrollment management, vice president of student affairs, campus dean, dean of students and executive director of counseling, advising and academic support. He previously worked at Atlantic Cape Community College, LaGuardia Community College, Long Island University and Suffolk County Community College.
