Dr. Jane K. Fernandes, Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

    Jane Kelleher Fernandes joined
UNC Asheville as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in July 2008. As an academic leader and educator of national prominence, her life's work—creating inclusive academic excellence in education at all levels—has taken her from Hawaii to the Atlantic seaboard. She earned a Master's degree and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa. Her undergraduate degree is in French and Comparative Literature from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
     Dr. Fernandes, who is deaf, was raised in the oral tradition to speak English and attended public schools in Worcester, Mass., long before the passage of state and federal laws requiring accommodations to be made for equal access. While a graduate student at the University of Iowa, she began learning American Sign Language. After immersing herself in signing and Deaf culture, she is today a balanced bilingual able to speak the languages of both Deaf and hearing people.
     Dr. Fernandes brings with her a wealth of educational experience. Following eight years as an academic leader in both pre-college and higher education settings, she became vice president and then the provost at Gallaudet University, an institution for deaf students, in Washington, D.C. While there, she led academic strategic planning to raise enrollment, retention and graduation rates, to strengthen academic standards, and to achieve equitable outcomes for students across race and among the many ways there are to be deaf.
     Her scholarship and service have been dedicated to fostering bilingual American Sign Language-English literacy in all deaf students, promoting interdisciplinary teaching and learning practices, and advocating for racial justice. She fosters the development of inclusive schools of racial justice where every student, regardless of circumstances, is welcome and educated respectfully to the maximum positive outcome.
     In addition to her position as Provost, Dr. Fernandes is a tenured professor of education at UNC Asheville and serves as a Senior Fellow with the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity & Inclusion Institute, founded at Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C. 

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William P. Massey Vice Chancellor Alumni & Development

     William P. Massey joined UNC Asheville as Vice Chancellor for Alumni & Development in October 2003. Previously, he served as President and CEO at the Charlotte Museum of History.
     Massey has held a number of senior fund-raising, leadership and communications positions. Prior to joining the Charlotte Museum of History, he was President of the National Charities Information Bureau (NCIB), the leading independent source of information about America's charities, headquartered in New York. Before being recruited to NCIB, he served as Executive Director of the Kathleen Price Bryan Family Fund, a distinguished philanthropic organization in Greensboro. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President at Ruder Finn Public Relations, an international public relations and communications firm whose clients ranged from universities and international corporations to arts and humanities organizations. Earlier in his career, he was the Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations at UNC-Chapel Hill.
     A North Carolina native, Massey holds a bachelor's degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and a master's degree from Duke University.
     Massey serves on the boards of several community and arts organizations, including the Penland School of Crafts; the John C. Campbell Folk School; the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits, Raleigh; and the Roanoke Island Commission, Manteo.
 

Janet Cone Athletics Director

     Janet Cone joined UNC Asheville as Athletics Director in April 2004. Previously, she served as Associate Athletics Director at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Samford, which has 4,500 students, competes at the NCAA Division I level and offers 17 men's and women's sports. 
     Cone joined Samford in 1996, recruiting and coaching Samford's first women's basketball team. She coached the Samford Bulldogs for five years, and then moved up the ranks to become the Assistant Athletics Director/Senior Women's Administrator and then Associate Athletics Director. 
Cone is no stranger to Western North Carolina. Earlier in her career, she coached women's basketball at Western Carolina University and Mars Hill College. 
     Cone graduated magna cum laude from Furman University in 1978, earning a degree in health and physical education, and lettering in basketball and field hockey. She earned a master's degree in physical education from the University of South Carolina in 1986. 
     She is a member of the Women's Sports Foundation, National Association of Collegiate Athletic Administrators, National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators and the Executive Women's Golf Association.

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Christine Riley Chief of Staff

      Christine Riley joined UNC Asheville in October 2005. A New Hampshire native, she worked closely with UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder at Colby-Sawyer College. Primarily involved with people and planning, Riley oversees the Human Resources Department, the combined Information Technology Services/Library, and Institutional Research, and is overseeing UNC Asheville’s strategic planning process, currently under way.
     Riley has 20-plus years of experience as a human resources generalist in settings that include higher education, telecommunications, manufacturing, and the library services industries. Her specific areas of expertise include organizational development, strategic planning, employee relations, compensation programs, recruitment strategies, and management training.
      She reports that her many previous years in the publishing world and her bachelor’s degree in English from Averett College (now Averett University) in Danville, Va., have not had nearly the influence on her professional life as has her experience as a defenseless child of two English majors. A graduate of Antioch New England Graduate School, she is also a practicing psychotherapist who has worked in primary care settings as well as private practice. She is married to artist Michael J. Koza.

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Tom Lawton University General Counsel

University General Counsel

     Tom Lawton became UNC Asheville's first General Counsel in August 2003. He is admitted to practice in North Carolina courts, the federal courts in North Carolina, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His professional associations include membership in the National Association of College and University Attorneys. At UNC Asheville he has taught commercial law and a freshman colloquium on law and literature.
     Lawton came to UNC Asheville after more than ten years of litigation practice with the Education Section of the North Carolina Department of Justice. As an Assistant Attorney General, he represented the State Board of Education, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the Board of Governors of The University of North Carolina, and each of the constituent institutions in the UNC system, as well as many of their officers and employees, in a variety of state and federal fora, trial and appellate.
     Lawton earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and was in private practice in Washington, D.C., before returning to North Carolina in 1993.
     Before entering law school, Lawton had worked as the editor of a weekly newspaper in Hamlet and a reporter for dailies in Fayetteville and Raleigh, a press aide in Terry Sanford's 1986 campaign for the U.S. Senate, and then the Senator's first press secretary on Capitol Hill.
     A native of South Carolina, Lawton received an A.B. in ethics and political philosophy from Brown University. He and his wife, Rachel Perry, have two children and a hound dog named Hector. He is rumored to have sung in an opera, and has been known to attempt publicly to play guitar, fiddle and other musical instruments, and has threatened to try the highland bagpipes.
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John Pierce Vice Chancellor for Finance and Campus Operations

Financial Affairs and Campus Operations

     John G. Pierce joined UNC Asheville as Vice Chancellor for Finance & Campus Operations in August 2008. Pierce comes to the position with more than 20 years of chief financial officer experience.       

     Most recently, he served as Vice President of Finance and CFO of Sonopress (now Arvato Digital Services), one of the largest CD and DVD manufacturers in the United States. During his seven years there, he managed a staff of 32, including finance, credit, billing, quoting and purchasing staff. Pierce served as a key negotiator of the Sonopress/SonyBMG worldwide manufacturing agreement, and also was instrumental in securing two major Hollywood studio DVD contracts for Sonopress. In addition, through increased efficiencies, he significantly reduced the company's information technology expenditures.

      Previously, Pierce served as CFO at M.B. Haynes Corporation/Telephone Systems of Asheville and Beacon Manufacturing Co. Earlier in his career, Pierce was the cost and inventory accounting manager at RJR Archer and an audit supervisor at Ernst & Ernst in Winston-Salem. A graduate of Wake Forest University and a certified public accountant, Pierce serves on the Asheville-Buncombe YMCA Board of Directors and as a former chairman of the Asheville Chamber of Commerce Business Health Roundtable.

      Previously he served on the Mission St. Joseph's Health Care System Board of Directors, as president and founder of the Asheville Area Employers Healthcare Alliance, and as president of the Manufacturers Executive Association.

 
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