News Stream

Dan Kim, JD, vice president for marketing and communications, and Wayne Gersie, PhD, vice president for equity and inclusion, began their respective positions at QU this summer. Kim will oversee the office of Marketing and Communications, including the Quinnipiac University Poll and the new Center for Survey Insights. Gersie will develop strategies and execute programs that advance diversity, equity, inclusion, community and social justice across the university. Both will serve on the university’s Management Committee.

The South Quad development of the Mount Carmel Campus is taking shape — with a 417-bed residence hall, a general academic building and a new home for the School of Business. The residence hall is on schedule to open at the start of the 2024-25 academic year. The School of Business and the new academic building are also set to open during the 2024-25 academic year.

Quinnipiac conferred 3,141 degrees during six Commencement ceremonies May 12-14. The Commencement speakers included the Honorable Victor A. Bolden, U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut; Malika Fair, MD, MPH, senior director of equity and social accountability for the Association of American Medical Colleges; Jill Mayer, CEO of Bead Industries; Arthur L. Caplan, the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at New York University; Dennis House, WTNH News 8 evening news and chief political anchor; and Rocco Orlando, MD, chief academic officer at Hartford HealthCare.

Larry Z. Slater, PhD, began his new role as dean of the School of Nursing in June. Slater joins QU from the University of Memphis, Loewenberg College of Nursing, where he served as associate dean for academic programs and a clinical professor. Slater earned his PhD in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and his master’s degree in accounting from the Collat School of Business at UAB.

A partnership between the Quinnipiac Entrepreneurship Academy and Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program (ConnCORP) has accelerated the skills and supported the dreams of 18 small business owners seeking to grow enterprises in the Hamden-New Haven area. Their success was celebrated at the ConnCORP/Quinnipiac University Community Entrepreneurship Pitch Night and Graduation in May. The graduates represent the first group to complete the 14-week program led by Tuvana Rua, associate professor of management.

Grant Crawford, professor of mechanical engineering, is the president-elect of the American Society for Engineering Education. He began his term at ASEE’s annual meeting in June and will become president of the ASEE in 2024-25. Crawford holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Kansas, a Master of Science in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy. 

Aurelia Ochoa received the inaugural Hartford HealthCare Nursing and Health Sciences Equity Scholarship in June. “I am incredibly grateful to Quinnipiac University and Hartford HealthCare for providing me with this opportunity to follow my dream of becoming a nurse,” Ochoa said. The scholarship was established with a $500,000 gift over five years from HHC to support underrepresented first-year students from Connecticut entering nursing or health sciences undergraduate programs at QU.