New Administrative Roles in Higher Education for Five Black Americans

Kafui Kouakou has joined Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, as the assistant vice president of career development and experiential learning. Dr. Kouakou comes to Quinnipiac from Albion College in Michigan where he served as dean of the School for Public Purpose and Professional Advancement.

Dr. Kouakou earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and business administration from York College. He earned a master’s degree in economics from Brooklyn College and a doctorate in higher education administration from Northeastern University in Boston.

Rashonda Austin is the new director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She has served as interim director of undergraduate admissions since June 2022. Earlier, Austin served as associate director of undergraduate admissions since 2019.

Austin earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Teriya Richardson was named university physician at Texas Southern University in Houston. In this role, she will oversee the daily medical operations of Student Health Services. She is a former assistant professor at the University of Texas at Houston

A native of Chicago, Dr. Richmond received a bachelor’s degree from Mount Saint Clare College in Clinton, Iowa. She earned both a medical doctorate and a master of public health degree from the University of Illinois.

Troy Miller has been named vice president for strategic enrollment management at the University of Southern Indiana, effective April 3. Most recently, Miller served as the vice president for enrollment management and intercollegiate athletics at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. Earlier, he was the associate vice provost and director of admissions at the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York System.

Miller earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. He holds a master’s degree in human resource management and labor relations from the New York Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

Christian Mitchell has been named the next vice president for civic engagement at the University of Chicago, beginning April 1. He has been serving as the deputy governor for public safety, energy, and infrastructure under Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Mitchell is a 2008 graduate of the University of Chicago, where he majored in public policy. He earned a juris doctorate at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

In Memoriam: Fannie Gaston-Johansson, 1938-2023

Fannie Gaston-Johansson, a long-time faculty member of the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, died at her home in Baltimore on January 7. She was 84 years old.

Dr. Gaston-Johansson grew up in Hickory, North Carolina, and was valedictorian of her high school class. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from nearby Winston-Salem State University. Dr. Gaston-Johansson continued her studies at the University of California, San Francisco, where she received a master’s degree in medical, surgical, and psychiatric nursing. She traveled to Sweden as an exchange student where she met her husband, Dr. Sonny Johansson and raised a family. While raising her four children and working full-time, she earned a Ph.D. in 1985 at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Dr. Gaston-Johansson was a member of the University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty from 1985 to 1993 where she served as an associate professor and the director of nursing research and quality improvement. She joined the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1993 as an associate professor and held the Elsie M. Lawler Endowed Chair throughout her tenure. In 1998, Professor Gaston-Johansson became the first Black woman to become a tenured professor at Johns Hopkins University. For a time, she held joint appointments at Johns Hopkins and the University of Gothenburg.

Her work and research focused on symptom and pain management, quality of life, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and racial and ethnic health disparities. A scientist who authored upwards of 100 scientific articles, Professor Gaston-Johansson was also an inventor, holding U.S. and international patents on the Pain-O-Meter, an assessment tool that provides a standardized way to measure pain. It has been used by hospitals in the United States and overseas.

In 2007, Gaston-Johansson was named the inaugural chair of the department of acute and chronic care at John Hopkins Nursing, as the school’s faculty was organized in academic departments for the first time. She also served as director of the school’s Center on Health Disparities Research. She was named professor emerita upon her retirement in 2014.

In May 2022, Johns Hopkins University renamed the Target Opportunity Program, the Fannie Gaston-Johansson Faculty of Excellence Program. Since 2015 this program has played a key role in increasing faculty diversity at Johns Hopkins University.