New CEOs
Dena McCaffrey will serve as president of Jefferson College in Missouri. She will begin as president-elect from one year beginning July 1 before taking the helm from Raymond Cummiskey who will retire on June 30, 2020. McCaffrey is currently the college’s dean of career and technical education, a post she’s held since 2013. She has also served as the college’s interim dean and director of outreach and educational sites. Previously, McCaffrey was a marketing/sales director at the Jewish Community Center and associate director of MBA and graduate business programs at St. Louis University. She was also a program coordinator at the Boeing Institute of International Business.
Avis Proctor is the next president of Harper College in Illinois, effective July 1. She is taking over for Ken Ender, who is retiring after 10 years as CEO. Proctor is currently president of Broward College’s North Campus in Florida. She has 25 years of experience working in multicultural environments as an innovative mathematics educator and academic administrator with a focus on teaching, service and research. Proctor is also a higher education scholar and an Aspen Presidential Fellow. Prior to joining Broward in 2000, Proctor was a math teacher at Fort Lauderdale’s Pine Crest School.
Interim president
Melvyn Schiavelli will serve as interim president of Northern Virginia Community College, effective March 15. He currently is the college’s executive vice president, overseeing academic and student services. This is his second time serving as the college’s interim president. Over his career, Schiavelli has served as a faculty member, department chair, dean, provost and interim president at the College of William & Mary and as provost at the University of Delaware. More recently, Schiavelli was the founding president of the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.
Appointments
Ashley Morris is now dean of business and professional services at Savannah Technical College in Georgia. Previously, she was dean of academic affairs and quality enhancement plan director for Albany Technical College in Georgia.
Robert DeHaas has been appointed founding dean of the Early Childhood Education Baccalaureate Institute at Brookhaven College, which is part of the Dallas County Community College District. He previously worked at the Dallas Teacher Residency — a non-profit organization designed to recruit, prepare and support teachers to teach in partnership with urban public school districts across North Texas — which he co-founded in 2013. Prior to that, DeHaas was the founding director of operations for Uplift Heights Preparatory, a K-12 charter school in Dallas.
