May 2, 2022
Dear William Paterson Faculty and Staff,
Welcome to May! With just two weeks left in the semester, I want to update the community on some administrative changes that will take effect over the summer for the new fiscal year. These changes are driven by the fact that our search for a new Chief Financial Officer did not yield a successful hire. Therefore, I have decided to restructure operations to take advantage of the existing strengths of both our finance and budgeting areas. Effective July 1st, Tim Lever, who currently serves as Director of University Budgets and Financial Planning, will assume the role of Associate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Glenda Jara, who currently serves as Associate Controller, will move into the Controller’s position; and Kristine Dei Mendoza, who currently serves as Finance Manager, will assume the role of Associate Controller.
Our current Associate Vice President for Finance and CFO Sam Green, who is due to retire soon, will remain with William Paterson for a limited period in a part-time capacity to drive some special projects that I will speak about in the near future. I want to thank Sam for agreeing to this arrangement. Though our CFO search did not produce the desired result, I am confident that this team of talented professionals will deliver the finance and budget expertise and leadership that will help William Paterson move forward.
Last week saw the in-person return of our Annual Legacy Award Gala, where we honored Dr. Jean Levitan as Distinguished Faculty; Rich Geraffo ’85, Vice President at Amazon Web Services, as Distinguished Alumnus; and Withum, a CPA and advisory firm, as Distinguished Organization. We also celebrated the many WP students who are doing great things with the support of scholarships. It was wonderful to see so many dedicated WP students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and friends reconnect over the course of a wonderful night at The Grove, while helping raise important scholarship funds. Thank you to everyone who took part, and thanks to Vice President Pam Ferguson and her team, especially Director of Special Events Meredith McCarthy Makkai, for putting together a great event.
This is an exciting time of year, but it can also be a stressful one, especially for our students. With that in mind, Provost Josh Powers, Vice President Miki Cammarata, and I are sharing with students today a brief video with the message, “Together, we’ll do this.” In your interactions with students over the next couple of weeks, please help reinforce this message and let them know about available resources if they need extra support. Thank you.
