Hired
Rudy Besikof – Moreno Valley College (Calif.)
Rudy Besikof has been selected as the next president of Moreno Valley College. He has served as the president of Laney College in California for the past five years and earned the 2024 Outstanding Community Partner Award from the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.
Rosemary Costigan – Community College of Rhode Island
Rosemary Costigan is taking over as president of the Community College of Rhode Island. She has served as interim leader since its former president stepped down in May 2023.
Costigan has focused on reversing declining enrollment and retention rates brought on by the pandemic since becoming interim president. The community college’s two- and three-year graduation rates now exceed national averages, and current enrollment is about 5% higher than this time last year, Warwick Beacon reports.
Eric Hall – Pasco-Hernando State College (Fla.)
Pasco-Hernando State College has installed Eric Hall as the institution’s permanent president after serving for one week in the interim.
Hall is the former secretary of Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice. An ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis, he also served on the state’s Government Efficiency Task Force, a precursor to the federal agency previously led by Elon Musk.
Pasco-Hernando’s former president stepped down in May following a report compiled by Florida’s DOGE department accusing the school of possessing one of the lowest student retention rates in the state, WUSF reports.
Hall is the latest president of a Florida institution to win the top job due in part to his or her working relationship with Gov. DeSantis, who has defined his political career remodeling public education with a conservative vision. Other recent hires include Florida Atlantic University, Florida A&M University, Florida International University, Broward College and New College of Florida.
Larry Johnson Jr. – Bronx Community College (N.Y.)
Larry Johnson has been named the president of Bronx Community College. He will be leaving his current post at Guttman Community College, another CUNY two-year school.
As the second president of Guttman, Johnson led unprecedented enrollment growth and introduced several academic programs in cybersecurity, secondary education and health information technology. He also established an innovation center that partnered with regional organizations to develop career opportunities for students from underserved communities.
Kimberlee Messina – City College of San Francisco (Calif.)
Kimberlee Messina has been tapped to lead City College of San Francisco. Messina is currently the president of Spokane Falls Community College in Washington state, a position she’s held since 2019.
City College rotated through 10 chancellors in the last 13 years prior to Messina’s appointment, San Francisco Chronicle reports. The constant leadership changes placed it under accreditation warning from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges
Albert Mosley – Bethune-Cookman University (Fla.)
Albert Mosley has been selected as the next president of Bethune-Cookman University, a private HBCU in Florida. He is currently the president of Morningside University in Iowa, a position he’s held for three years.
More from UB: Here’s one list of the 30 most beautiful college campuses
Mosley, who starts on July 7, will be Bethune-Cookman’s first permanent president in the last four years.
“His proven ability to launch forward-thinking academic programs, secure major philanthropic investments, and lead with both vision and integrity made him the clear choice to guide our university in its next chapter,” said Pete Gamble, chair of Bethune-Cookman’s board.
Thomas Newsom – Pittsburg State University (Kans.)
Thomas Newsom is leaving his current role as president at Southeastern Oklahoma State University to take the mantle at Pittsburg State University.
Enrollment at Southeastern Oklahoma grew by about 500 students in the five years Newsom headed the institution. The public four-year university reached a record 5,800 students. Enrollment at Pittsburg, on the other hand, has dropped by 13%, Kansas Reflector reports.
Newsome plans to implement a strategic enrollment plan and update Pittsburg’s academic programs in respect with regional workforce demands, according to a university release.
Manya Whitaker – Colorado College
Colorado College has made Manya Whitaker the permanent president following her one-year stint in the interim. Board members have praised Whitaker for Guiding Colorado College through a new Carnegie Classification and elevating the institution’s student-centered focus, according to an official release.
Whitaker, who holds a doctorate in development psychology, has served in a multitude of roles at Colorado College over the last 14 years. Before becoming the acting president last year, she served as executive vice president and chief of staff to former President L. Song Richardson.
Retired
Russell K. Hotzler – New York City College of Technology
Russell Hotzler has announced his retirement after 55 years as a staff member at CUNY and 21 years as president of New York City College of Technology.
“As president, Hotzler has transformed City Tech into a beacon of STEM education for New York City, most recently through the launch of the DNA Learning Center NYC, an 18,000-square-foot specialized lab facility opened in 2021 as a partnership with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,” wrote CUNY system chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez.
Hotzler also oversaw the opening of City Tech’s 365,000-square-foot center for training in the clinical sciences and healthcare in 2019.
“I can only hope that more of us could dedicate their career to the service of others and build a legacy that is as impactful as that of Russ Hotzler,” Rodríguez wrote.
Stepping down
Jim Ryan – University of Virginia
Jim Ryan is set to resign from the University of Virginia no later than Aug. 15, following increased federal scrutiny from the Trump administration.
The Department of Justice has been investigating the state flagship university over its DEI initiatives for the past month. Last week, the department demanded Ryan’s resignation as a condition to settle the civil rights inquiry, or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, The New York Times reports.
President since 2018, Ryan was set to step down at the end of the following academic year for unrelated reasons.
“While there are very important principles at play here, I would at a very practical level be fighting to keep my job for one more year while knowingly and willingly sacrificing others in this community,” Ryan wrote in his announcement. “If this were not so distinctly tied to me personally, I may have pursued a different path. But I could not in good conscience cause any real and direct harm to my colleagues and our students in order to preserve my own position.”
