6/21/2011

Musical chairs in Allen Building as Trask shuffles staff and adds another vice president

You got to hand it to Tallman Trask, executive vice president. Not only did he announce some changes in his staff on Monday, but his web page is already updated. Very efficient, and very different from so many Duke web pages, including the President's, which are sorry specimens.

The winner in the shuffle seems to be Kyle Cavanaugh, hired from the University of Florida in 2009 to be VP for human relations. In 2010 he added to his portfolio, picking up Duke Police and responsibilities as the university's emergency coordinator. And now he adds the parking and transportation mess to his responsibilities. Trask formerly handled this personally. New title: VP for administration.

John Noonan, who was a vice president at Brown before coming to Duke with lesser title, gets promoted to VP for facilities with new responsibilities for housekeeping. His portfolio thus includes building maintenance, grounds, energy, environment, maps, stuff like that.

Noonan's new job sounds suspiciously like an old one. Duke VP Kemel Dawkins, one of three high ranking blacks in Allen Building, was pushed out in April, 2010, with the explanation there was no need for a VP of campus services.

Dawkins, by the way, became executive vice chancellor of administration at the Newark campus of Rutgers University. That sounds impressive, until you read of his work in the local New Jersey news. The campus bed bug problem landed in his lap after Chancellor Steven Diner announced, “The chancellor can’t deal with every situation on campus.”

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