Clarke president to depart
Thom Chesney, president of Clarke University announced that he will step down after two and a half years with hopes that his successor will see the university through its “next steps.”
He will continue in the position through the end of the year, at which point an interim president will be appointed.
Chesney said he decided to step down after considering the university’s trajectory and determining it would be best for another person to guide it through its next steps. He has held the position since July 2019.
“It came to a point where I thought, ‘I can do this work, I love this work, and I love this place, but I have to be true to myself and the institution,’ and I believe that someone else with a different skill set can do it even better,” he told the Telegraph Herald.
Margaret Mary Cosgrove, vice chair of the Clarke Board of Trustees, said the board is in the process of identifying an interim president to take over at the end of the year. The timeline for the official president search has not yet been set.
Dubuque County selects human resources director
Dubuque County supervisors hired a new county human resources administrator to fill a position that has been vacant since June.
Chelsea Greene, formerly chief people officer for Hillcrest Family Services, will start in the role in December. She was chosen from among 13 applicants.
Greene has held her position at Hillcrest for more than two years. Before that, she was human resources director for Guttenberg Municipal Hospital and Clinics in Clayton County for three years. Prior to that, she worked human resources in the private sector in Prairie du Chien and Boscobel, Wis.
Greene’s starting salary with the county will be $100,311. The previous human resources administrator, Dawn Sherman, had a salary of $122,604.
According to County Auditor Kevin Dragotto, Greene’s position will be “pared back” from what Sherman’s had been.
“The position Chelsea has is pure, unadulterated HR,” Dragotto said. “The Board (of Supervisors) activities and other things Dawn was overseeing are now overseen by me.”