New faces at OHEThe Rhode Island Office of Higher Education has several new faces providing oversight to the state’s three public institutions of higher learning. A new commissioner was confirmed in June, and three new members of the Board of Governors began their terms last February.
Jack R. Warner, associate chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and formerly vice chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, is the new commissioner for higher education. He succeeds William R. Holland, who served as commissioner for three years.
Warner is a long-time community college administrator who served as dean of student affairs at Bristol Community College in Fall River for 15 years and in several administrative roles at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, Mass. As commissioner, Warner is the top administrator of the Office of Higher Education and directs its administrative and research responsibilities for the Board of Governors.
Appointed to three year terms on the Board of Governors are Jose Gonzales and Daniel Ryan. They succeed former Board members Laura DiSano and Frederick Lohrum.
Gonzalez is director of equity and access for the Providence Public School Department and an adjunct faculty member in the Educational Studies Department at Rhode Island College. Previously he worked at the Rhode Island Children’s Crusade for Higher Education and the Education Alliance at Brown University, as well as at several other educational institutions and agencies in the state. As an admissions advisor at URI from 1985 to 1989, he developed strategies to increase minority enrollment.
Ryan is an independent tax and accounting consultant and formerly a senior tax partner at Sansiveri, Ryan, Sullivan&Co. He also serves as an alternative dispute resolution mediator for the U.S. First District Court. He is a member of the board of trustees of Providence College, St. Joseph’s Health Services of Rhode Island, Providence Country Day School, and The Prout School.
Alison DiPetrillo has been appointed to a two-year term as the Board of Governors’ student representative, replacing former Rhode Island College student Jessica Tempest. She is a senior communication studies major at the University of Rhode Island’s Feinstein College of Continuing Education, where she served as president of the Student Government Board and a member of the College Advisory Board. Her sons, Derek and Evan, are also URI students.
The other members of the Board of Governors are Sarah Dowling, chair, a partner in the law firm Adler, Pollock&Sheehan; Frank Caprio, vice chair, chief judge of the Municipal Court of Providence; Deborah Smith, secretary, former senior vice president at Old Stone Bank; R.I. State Rep. Kenneth Carter; James DiPrete, chairman of the R.I. Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education; Francis Flaherty, a private attorney and the former mayor of Warwick; John Howell, president of Beacon Communications; R.I. State Senator Thomas Izzo; William Robinson, a partner in the law firm Edwards&Angell; Michael Ryan, executive vice president of Narragansett Electric Co.; Michael Schuster, managing partner of Competitive Human Resources Strategies; and William Turner.
By Todd McLeish
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