KU names final candidate for director of Institutional Opportunity and Access

Kansas University has now shared the name of the third and final candidate to become director of the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access, which investigates complaints of sexual violence and discrimination against students.

Robinette Kelley is scheduled to give a public presentation at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. Kelley was Title IX coordinator and director of Iowa State University’s Office of Equal Opportunity, which handles sexual violence and discrimination complaints and investigations for that school. She held the position from 2013 until October, according to her LinkedIn resume.

Previously she worked at State University of New York at Buffalo for five years as assistant director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Affirmative Action Administration (and also deputy Title IX coordinator) and for 10 years in the Employee Relations section of Human Resources, according to a resume shared on the KU website.

Kelley received a master’s degree in higher education administration and a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from SUNY at Buffalo.

KU’s first two IOA director candidates, both attorneys, gave public presentations this week. Ebony Calloway-Spencer, a supervisor for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in Atlanta, spoke Wednesday. Abigail Byman, director of academic labor relations at California State University, presented on Monday.

KU’s new IOA director will replace the office’s first director, Jane McQueeny, who resigned in October. McQueeny is an attorney who previously worked in the USDE’s Office for Civil Rights and also for Jackson County, Mo., both as a trial attorney in the prosecutor’s office and defending the county in employment matters in the County Counselor’s office.

• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.