Four Women Named Department Chairs at American Universities

Christina S. Kraus was appointed chair of the department of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She is the Thomas A. Thacher Professor of Latin at the university and has been on the Yale faculty since 2004.

Professor Kraus is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Karen Beckwith, the Flora Stone Mather Professor, was named chair of the department of political science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Professor Beckwith is the author of American Women and Political Participation: The Impacts of Work, Generation, and Feminism (Greenwood Press, 1986). She is the lead editor of the forthcoming series of books that will be published under the banner, Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics.

Dr. Beckwith is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University in New York.

Wanda K. Lawrence was appointed chair of the department of nursing at North Carolina Central University in Durham. Dr. Lawrence was a professor of nursing at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. She served on the Winston-Salem State faculty for 12 years.

Dr. Lawrence is a graduate of North Carolina Central University. She holds a master’s degree in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a doctorate in higher education leadership from Capella University.

Cindy Lee was named chair of the engineering and science education department at Clemson University in South Carolina. She has been serving as interim chair and previously was the interim dean for graduate studies and research for the College of Engineering and Science.

Professor Lee is a graduate of Indiana University, where she majored in American literature. She holds a master’s degree in geology and chemistry from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a Ph.D. in geochemistry from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.