Rosanna Ferro, vice president for student affairs and campus life for Ithaca College, is stepping down from her position and will leave the college June 24, 2022. 

In a May 3 email to the college community, President La Jerne Cornish announced that Ferro, who has worked at the college since 2017, will become the Chief of Education at College Track, an organization that works to aid students in confronting systemic barriers as they work to complete bachelor’s degrees. College Track is currently led by former President Shirley M. Collado, who recently left the college Jan. 10, 2022. 

Cornish said that current Dean of Students Bonnie Prunty will serve as vice president for student affairs and campus life through 2024. Prunty has worked at the college since 1988 and has served as the Dean of Students since 2018.

“We will conduct a national search for a new vice president for student affairs and campus life during the 2023–24 academic year, after which Bonnie plans to retire,” Cornish said in the email.

The email also stated that Prunty has appointed Marsha Dawson as the next Dean of Students. Dawson has worked at the college since 2019 and is currently the director of the Offices of Residential Life and Student Conduct & Community Standards. Cornish said the college will be conducting an internal search for a new director of Residential Life and Student Conduct and Community Standards, which could begin as early as this summer. 

“I want to affirm my sincere gratitude for the outstanding contributions that Dr. Ferro has made to the IC experience since joining the college five years ago,” Cornish said in the email. “She leaves a strong foundation upon which Dean Prunty will now enrich the division’s resources in support of our students’ — and entire community’s — comprehensive growth.”

Ferro is the most recent high-ranking official to leave the college. Collado stepped down from her position in August 2021 and served as senior adviser to the interim president and board of trustees until she left the college in January 2022. In February 2021, Bill Guerrero, former vice president for finance and administration, left the college for a position at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts and now works at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Guilherme Costa, former vice president for legal affairs, general counsel and secretary to the Ithaca College Board of Trustees, left the college for a position at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York in September 2020.