Academic Affairs

The Calvert School, a private day school with a nationally recognized homeschooling curriculum, will welcome a new headmaster in July, the school announced Thursday. Andrew Holmgren, currently the head of the Middle School at Collegiate School in New York City, will become the North Baltimore school's seventh headmaster. He will replace Andrew Martire, who has been headmaster of the Calvert School since 2004. Martire had accepted the job of Head of School at the Kinkaid School in Houston.

The president of Baltimore City Community College was forced out this week, following a tumultuous two years and a recent dramatic drop in enrollment. President Carolane Williams said she was caught off guard when two trustees called her Monday to say she had been "separated" from the college. Williams, who has headed the college for six years, said she was "confused" by the board's abrupt decision, which was announced Tuesday. "It came as a surprise, because there had been no previous conversations about it or any leadership issues that they had been concerned about, either from the board chair or the board as a whole," Williams said.

Towson University's provost will become its interim president after the departure next month of Robert L. Caret, a spokeswoman for the state university system confirmed Monday morning. William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, appointed Marcia G. Welsh, who has served as provost and vice president for academic affairs since 2009 at Towson. The decision was announced to the Towson community in an email Monday, said system spokeswoman Anne Moultrie. Welsh will begin her new duties on April 20, the day after Caret is scheduled to depart Towson.

Tai Sophia Institute appoints new vice president Mary Ellen Petrisko, a resident of Annapolis, has been appointed academic vice president of the Tai Sophia Institute for the Healing Arts. A former vice president of academic affairs at the University of Maryland University College and deputy secretary of Higher Education at the Maryland Higher Education Commission, Petrisko will be responsible for oversight of the institute's academic programs. Tai Sophia Institute offers graduate education and advanced degrees in acupuncture, botanical healing and applied healing arts.

Goucher College has named its first provost, Marc M. Roy of Coe College in Iowa, in a process that drew more than 100 applications, school officials said in a statement released yesterday. Roy, expected to begin the job in June, also will serve as Goucher's chief academic officer. He is Coe College's vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. As Goucher's provost, Roy will be the school's second-highest ranking administrator and will direct its academic program. In selecting its first provost, the college convened a committee made up of faculty, students, staff and trustees.

For 12 years, Barbara Price has been a vice president and dean at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, but during that time she has never ceased pursuing her painting career.Today, as she prepares to leave the institute for her new post as president of Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, a farewell exhibit of her work opens. The exhibit is at the institute's second floor gallery of the Fox building, at Mount Royal and Lafayette avenues, and the lower level gallery in the main building, Mount Royal Avenue and Lanvale Street.

President Barack Obama announced yesterday his intention to nominate Kristina M. Johnson, provost of the Johns Hopkins University, to be undersecretary of energy. Johnson, 51, has been provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Hopkins since 2007. Before that, she was dean of engineering at Duke University. An award-winning electrical engineer, she holds 129 U.S. and foreign patents or patents pending and is the co-founder of several startup companies. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be responsible for leading administration initiatives in energy efficiency, solar and wind power, geothermal energy, clean-car technology and other forms of renewable energy.

Janet DiPietro, a professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, has been named associate dean for research for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A researcher who specializes in fetal development issues, DiPietro earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from Rutgers University and her doctorate in developmental psychology from Stanford University. She joined Bloomberg in 1988 and was promoted to professor in 2003. Ann Harmon, a nurse in Franklin Square Hospital's Primary Care Center, has been selected as the hospital's 2007 Nurse of the Year.

Gregory L. Geoffroy, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Maryland, College Park, was named the 14th president of Iowa State University last night. Geoffroy accepted the $275,000 position, taking himself out of the running for the presidency of the University of Kentucky, where he was also a finalist. He is scheduled to start the new job July 1. "I feel great for him," said UMCP President C.D. "Dan" Mote Jr. "It's actually great for Iowa State. He is very well-prepared for the job."