Lightner to lead academic affairs as Bollard resumes full-time teaching, research

Fulfilling a plan she initiated last year, Kathleen Bollard is departing her role as vice president for academic affairs in system administration, with Michael Lightner taking over effective Sept. 1.

Lightner joined the CU President’s Office last summer as associate vice president for academic affairs. He now will serve as interim vice president, with a search to follow.

Bollard, a 20-year CU faculty member, is returning to a full-time role as associate professor of Spanish at CU Denver. She had planned on making that change last year. But when President Bruce Benson asked her to remain at the post in his cabinet, she agreed to stay part time, taking on a half-time faculty role  and welcoming Lightner to assist with the duties of the Office of Academic Affairs.

Bollard previously chaired the Department of Modern Languages, served as associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and won the campuswide teaching award in 2001. Last year, she received the Leadership in Public Higher Education Award from Faculty Council, which also named her administrator of the year in 2009. Her research area is 16th- and 17th-century Spanish literature.

Lightner is a professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering at CU-Boulder. He has served as director of the ECEE graduate program, associate dean for academic affairs and ECEE department chair. He helped found the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities and served as its associate executive director. Lightner also served as chair of the System Privilege and Tenure Committee, on the Boulder campus planning commission, and spent over 20 years as co-director of the Faculty Teaching Excellence summer workshop on technology-enhanced learning.