Lamont Repollet named president of Kean University

Lamont Repollet, Ed.D., the New Jersey Commissioner of Education and a Kean alumnus, will become the 18th leader of Kean University.

The Board of Trustees announced the appointment on Monday, May 11, following a unanimous vote in support of the thoughtful and charismatic educator.

“Dr. Repollet will step into the presidency with confidence and experience, and with the strength needed to lead Kean forward on its path of access and excellence,” said Board Chair Ada Morell ’97. “At such a critical time in the University and the state’s history, he brings both stability and ingenuity. He knows our mission. He lives our mission, and he is committed to ensuring that Kean provides the world-class education and experiences that students demand.”

Repollet, who currently oversees the top-ranked public school system in the nation, this summer will succeed President Dawood Farahi, Ph.D., who steps down from the position at the end of June after 17 years of transformative leadership.

“I am both humbled and energized by this appointment, and by the faith the Board of Trustees is placing in me to continue Kean University’s progress as one of the best institutions of higher education in New Jersey,” Repollet said after the vote. “I have important work to finish with the state, but I am grateful Governor Murphy supports this next step in my career, and I look forward to working with him in this new role.”

Repollet says he supports Gov. Murphy’s student-centered vision for higher education with the goal of making New Jersey the hub for American innovation and economic opportunity. Included in the vision is a Student Bill of Rights to encourage students to pursue higher education through college preparatory programs, reduce college costs, support a timely path to graduation, create a welcoming learning environment, and cultivate research, innovation and talent.

Repollet has served as the state’s education commissioner since 2018. During his time as commissioner, New Jersey was ranked best in the nation in the Education Week Quality Counts 2019 report. He and his team have worked to expand early childhood education; promote a school culture that embraces social and emotional learning; and strengthen STEM opportunities for students. He has made outreach to stakeholders across the state’s public education system a key component of his leadership style. Most recently, he has worked closely with Gov. Murphy as New Jersey’s public school children shifted to remote education amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 2014 to 2018, Repollet served as superintendent of the Asbury Park School District, where he implemented a number of programs that helped increase the graduation rate by 30 percent. Earlier in his career, he served as a high school principal and teacher.

Repollet graduated from Kean with a master’s degree in educational administration in 2000 and served on the Kean Board of Trustees from 2011 to 2018 before assuming his role as commissioner.

President Farahi announced his plans to step down from the presidency at the start of the academic year. The University worked with the search firm of Storbeck Search & Associates to conduct the national search along with a search committee that included faculty, students, alumni and members of the Board of Trustees.

Steve Fastook H’06, a member of the Board of Trustees who chaired the committee, noted the group considered more than 80 candidates during the months of the search, and Repollet kept making his way to the top.

“Lamont really impressed the search committee from day one,” Fastook said. “Some of us knew him from his days on the Board, some did not, but all of us were impressed with his depth of knowledge of the academic and economic challenges ahead. He has a strategic vision for moving students past the K-12 pipeline into a K-Bachelors pipeline that will define our future.”

Claire Mulry, OTD, a faculty member who served on the search committee, said each member of the committee brought a unique perspective to the selection process and worked collaboratively to find the candidate best suited to handle multiple initiatives and objectives.

“From an academic standpoint, it was really important to me that we select a candidate who respects the faculty role in the curricular process while keeping innovation of academic programs as a priority,” Mulry said. “As a faculty member, I’m really excited to work with Dr. Repollet.”

Repollet will take the helm of a University with more than 16,000 students in Union, Toms River, Manahawkin, and Jefferson, New Jersey as well as online and at Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China.

“Being on the Presidential Search Committee, I saw how Kean puts students first in all decisions,” said De'shawn Reed, a Kean football player from Jersey City who is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in physical education/exercise science this year. “That’s why Dr. Repollet is the best choice. I know that Kean’s students are in good hands with him as president.”

In addition to his Kean master's degree, Repollet received his Bachelor of Arts in communication from The College of New Jersey and a Doctorate in Education from Nova Southeastern University.

DePaul University names Tatum Thomas dean of School of Continuing and Professional Studies

For more than 15 years, Tatum Thomas has committed herself to preparing adult and nontraditional learners for the next stage in their careers. Effective July 1, she will serve as dean for DePaul University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

“Leading and designing emerging schools of professional studies is an area of expertise for Dr. Thomas," said Interim Provost Salma Ghanem. “Her deep understanding of nontraditional, urban education will strengthen DePaul's longstanding commitment to serve diverse learners. As a collaborative and innovative leader, Dr. Thomas will continue to advance SCPS, further supporting the success of our adult and nontraditional students."Thomas currently serves as senior associate dean of student affairs at Columbia University's School of Professional Studies in New York City. Prior to her current role, she served as the director of academic services at New York University's School of Professional Studies.

In her current role at Columbia University, Thomas oversees strategic initiatives to increase quality, retention and student outcomes in the School of Professional Studies. A leader in diversity and inclusion, she managed a first-of-its kind Columbia University HBCU Fellowship program. This successful program invites high-achieving undergraduate seniors to pursue master's degrees, enhancing student readiness with a robust mix of support services and career development opportunities.

“Nontraditional education has been a natural part of my being," said Thomas. “I was an inner-city, first-generation student and the product of multiple institutions that cater to non-traditional learners. I completed my bachelor's degree at night, while holding full-time and part-time positions and raising a small child. I know first-hand that affordability, flexibility, practicality and immediate returns on the investment are essential to adult learners."

DePaul officially launched SCPS in 2019. The school builds upon the work of its predecessors, the School for New Learning and the Office of Continuing and Professional Education. Aligned with the university's strategic plan, SCPS offers nontraditional students a range of lifelong learning opportunities, including credit-hour based, market-responsive professional studies degrees and credentials.

“DePaul's SCPS fulfills the mission of higher education," Thomas says. “We create a place of opportunity and deliver an excellent education without disrupting lives. I appreciate the caliber of DePaul's faculty and their highly visible commitment to lifelong learning and scholarship. I'm privileged to serve in this community."

During her tenure at Columbia University, Thomas launched multiple student service units. She opened the School of Professional Studies' first lifelong learning career center to provide resources for degree and non-degree students, in addition to alumni. The success of the pilot launch led to the opening of a second center in San Francisco. Relationships she has fostered with civic and corporate partners include Morgan Stanley, Turner Construction, the Mellon Foundation, Firelight Media and the Harlem YMCA of Greater New York.

“Dr. Thomas embodies the mission, values and professional impact represented by innovative schools of continuing education,” says Dr. Jason Wingard, dean and professor of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies. “She has served as an invaluable partner to me at Columbia - contributing to the preparation of global students for the future of work.”

At NYU's School of Professional Studies, she led key initiatives and programs. Her teams administered graduate degree programs, undergraduate degree programs, and continuing education programs and interacted with accrediting bodies for curriculum administration. As part of this work, she collaborated with department chairs and faculty to manage academic portfolios and launch new programs. Thomas also established a one-stop holistic counseling unit, as well as a judiciary committee to oversee academic integrity at the Division of Programs in Business.

Thomas holds a bachelor's in psychology from Marymount Manhattan College and a master's in higher education administration from Baruch College, City University of New York. She has a doctorate in organizational leadership from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She also earned a certificate of management excellence from the Harvard Business School. She plans to relocate to Chicago in June.

Don Opitz, an alumnus and adult education scholar, has served as interim dean for DePaul's SCPS since July 2018. “Don has led SCPS through a critical time of transition," Ghanem says. “Professional education is a strategic priority for DePaul, and thanks to his expertise, the school will continue on its positive trajectory. I am very grateful for all Don has done for the faculty, staff and students of SCPS."

Nicholas Johnson: Princeton University's First Black Valedictorian

Nicholas Johnson is the first black valedictorian in Princeton’s history.

He said he appreciates the encouragement he has received at Princeton in developing his academic interests. The University’s support through opportunities including international internships and cultural immersion trips to Peru, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom were especially significant, Johnson said. But most of all, he treasures his relationships with his classmates.

“My favorite memories of my time at Princeton are memories of time spent with close friends and classmates engaging in stimulating discussions — often late at night — about our beliefs, the cultures and environments in which we were raised, the state of the world, and how we plan on contributing positively to it in our own unique way,” Johnson said.

Johnson plans to spend this summer interning as a hybrid quantitative researcher and software developer at the D. E. Shaw Group before beginning Ph.D. studies in operations research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in fall 2020.

Along with his concentration in operations research and financial engineering, he is pursuing certificates in statistics and machine learning, applied and computational mathematics, and applications of computing.

His research has focused primarily on sequential decision-making under uncertainty, optimization, and the ethical considerations that must be made given the increasing role of algorithmic decision-making systems.

His senior thesis, “Sequential Stochastic Network Structure Optimization with Applications to Addressing Canada’s Obesity Epidemic,” focuses on developing high-performance, efficient algorithms to solve a network-based optimization problem that models a community-based preventative health intervention designed to curb the prevalence of obesity in Canada.

This work, supervised by Miklos Racz, assistant professor of operations research and financial engineering, also has applications to public health interventions designed to increase adherence to strict social distancing to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Johnson has another ongoing research project supervised by Yacine Ait-Sahalia, the Otto A. Hack ’03 Professor of Finance and professor of economics, in which he is developing a reinforcement learning agent to execute large financial trade orders with minimal market distortion.

During his junior year, Johnson conducted an independent research project, “Generating Privacy Preserving Synthetic Datasets,” supervised by Prateek Mittal, associate professor of electrical engineering, in which he developed a machine learning system to more robustly anonymize datasets than existing alternatives. He presented this work at the spring 2019 Electrical Engineering Symposium and the 2019 Center for Statistics and Machine Learning Symposium.

Among his other professors, William Massey, the Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and Dannelle Gutarra Cordero, a lecturer in African American studies, were also influential.

“Professor Massey inspired me by sharing his ever-present love for operations research and through his advocacy for black and African American students in STEM fields,” Johnson said. “He encouraged me to pursue increasingly ambitious research projects and to share my work at academic conferences. Professor Gutarra introduced me to academic writing during my first-year Writing Seminar. She was instrumental in helping me develop my skills as an effective academic writer and communicator, and she motivated me to become a writing fellow.”

In addition to serving as a writing fellow at Princeton’s Writing Center, Johnson is editor of Tortoise: A Journal of Writing Pedagogy. He is a member of Whitman College, where he has served as a residential college adviser. He is also a member of the Princeton chapter of Engineers Without Borders and served as its co-president in 2018.

As a rising senior, Johnson worked as a software engineer in machine learning at Google’s California headquarters.

He previously interned at Oxford University’s Integrative Computational Biology and Machine Learning Group, developing and implementing a novel optimization technique under the supervision of Aleksandr Sahakyan, principal investigator and group head. He presented the project at Princeton’s inaugural Day of Optimization in October 2018 and at the 25th Conference of African American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences in June 2019, where his project was recognized with the Angela E. Grant Poster Award for Best Modeling.

Johnson has interned at Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, and he participated in Whitman’s exchange program with Morningside College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in March 2017.

Among his academic honors, Johnson is a recipient of the Class of 1883 English Prize for Freshmen in the School of Engineering, a two-time recipient of the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence, and co-recipient with Sommers of the Class of 1939 Princeton Scholar Award. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in fall 2019 and to Tau Beta Pi in 2018, where he served as president of the Princeton Chapter in 2019.

Johnson is a graduate of Selwyn House School and attended Marianopolis College, both in Westmount, Quebec.

Atlanta mayor: Ahmaud Arbery's death a 'lynching of an African American man'

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Sunday called the shooting death of an unarmed African American jogger a "lynching" and said arrests of two accused men would not have been made if there was not video of the incident.

"It's heartbreaking that it's 2020 and this was a lynching of an African American man," Bottoms said of Ahmaud Arbery's death on CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."

Arbery, 25, was shot and killed on February 23 while jogging in southern Georgia. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested Thursday -- three months following the fatal shooting -- after a 36-second video that appears to show the incident went viral.

Bottoms said she believes the arrests would not have been made had video of the shooting not surfaced. CNN has not verified who recorded the video -- taken by someone in a vehicle that pulls up behind a pickup truck stopped in the road -- but it captured events that match numerous accounts of the shooting.

"I think that's absolutely the reason that they were charged. I think had we not seen that video, I don't believe that they would be charged," Bottoms said. The Democrat also said Arbery's death is a bigger issue that extends beyond the state of Georgia.

"With the rhetoric we hear coming out of the White House in so many ways, I think that many who are prone to being racist are given permission to do it in an overt way that we otherwise would not see in 2020," she said. "In cities across this country, even if local leadership fails, there was always the backstop of our Justice Department to step in and make sure people are appropriately prosecuted. But we don't have that leadership at the top right now. It's disheartening."

She continued, "I think it speaks to the need to have leadership at the top that cares for all of our communities and not just in words but in deeds as well."

[SOURCE: CNN]

Barack Obama: Trump's coronavirus response has been an 'absolute chaotic disaster

Former President Obama during a private call on Friday night with his former aides tore into the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis, calling it an “absolute chaotic disaster.”

The blistering assessment, confirmed to CNN by three former Obama administration officials, came on a call intended to encourage members of the Obama Alumni Association to engage with former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

"This election that's coming up — on every level — is so important because what we're going to be battling is not just a particular individual or a political party," Obama said, according to CNN. "What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided and seeing others as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life."

Obama continued to tear into the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, partly blaming the White House’s "what’s in it for me" mindset.

"It's part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty," Obama said. "It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset of 'what's in it for me' and 'to heck with everybody else' ... is operationalized in our government."

[SOURCE: THE HILL]