by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
The postsecondary education team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is losing more than its leader. Hilary Pennington, director of education, postsecondary success, and special initiatives in the foundation’s United States program since 2007, told grantees in an e-mail last month that she would leave her position by spring 2012 to “get closer to work on the ground.” But it looks as if some key members of Pennington’s team are preceding her out the door. Tom Dawson, a senior policy officer at Gates who has been in the thick of much of its discussion and grant making around higher education policy, left quietly this summer. And now Pennington’s deputy since early 2010, Mark David Milliron, is planning to leave Gates, as well. Milliron, a former head of the League for Innovation in the Community College whose high-impact presentations have made him a frequent speaker about the future of higher education, did not return an e-mail message seeking comment, but a Gates spokesman confirmed that he is leaving.
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