Academic Career & Executive Search Recruits General Counsel for MassArt
September 30, 2026 – Academic Career & Executive Search (ACES) has recruited Jeannie Barrett as general counsel at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt). Jennifer Muller, managing partner, led the assignment.
Ms. Barrett brings more than 25 years of legal experience in higher education, advising institutions and senior leaders on a wide range of complex legal, operational, governance, and compliance matters. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with university leadership to navigate institutional challenges, manage risk, and advance organizational priorities.
Ms. Barrett most recently served as general counsel for Illinois State University, where she advised senior leadership on a broad range of legal and compliance matters. Before that, she spent more than two decades at Georgia State University in legal affairs roles, building extensive experience in higher education law, governance, policy, and institutional risk. Her background includes advising university leaders on employment matters, regulatory compliance, contracts, litigation, and other issues affecting complex academic institutions.
Ms. Barrett will serve as MassArt’s chief legal and compliance officer, providing strategic legal guidance to the president, board of trustees, president’s cabinet, and senior leadership on a broad and complex range of matters. Reporting to the president, she will be a proactive partner to campus leaders and will supervise the executive director of equal opportunity and Title IX, as well as co-supervision of the administrative and special projects coordinator.
Founded in 1873, Massachusetts College of Art and Design is the nation’s first and only independent, free-standing public college of art and design. It is an inclusive community of thinkers, doers, makers, educators, innovators, and leaders striving to shape the future through art and design. Located in Boston’s hub of arts and culture along the Avenue of the Arts, MassArt enrolls 2,000 students and offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate degrees in 18 disciplines, as well as continuing education and youth programs.
Chief Information and Technology Officer Search
This past spring, ACES placed Jeffrey Glatstein as chief information and technology officer at MassArt. He was especially drawn to this position at MassArt given his background as a ceramics artist. Mr. Glatstein is a technology executive with nearly 20 years of higher education experience leading multi-disciplinary IT organizations. Under his leadership, teams and applications have received recognition for their innovative and transformational achievements. He most recently served as Senior Manager and CISO at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he was the inaugural leader responsible for all aspects of IT infrastructure and implemented the institution’s cybersecurity policies and framework.
Related: Academic Career & Executive Search Recruits CIO for Central New Mexico Community College
As chief information and technology officer, Mr. Glatstein will shape the College’s culture, strategy, and technology enterprise, positioning MassArt at the intersection of art, design, and digital transformation.
Scaling Growth Through Transformative Talent
High-growth environments can compress time, magnify decisions, and expose leadership gaps in an instant. As companies move through periods of rapid expansion, the ability to build and evolve the right leadership team becomes increasingly critical to sustaining momentum and creating long-term value. Across private equity, venture capital, and technology-driven businesses, organizations are rethinking how they assess executive talent, strengthen leadership benches, and prepare teams for the demands of the next stage of growth. From founder-led recruiting and executive assessment to AI-enabled talent intelligence, cybersecurity leadership, and organizational design, the focus is shifting toward more deliberate, data-informed decisions about the people ultimately responsible for scaling the enterprise.
Hunt Scanlon Media will convene more than 250 private equity & venture capital operating partners, chief talent officers, and executive recruiters at The Marker Hotel in San Francisco on October 28, 2026. The program will explore how organizations across venture capital, private equity, and high-growth technology sectors are building the leadership infrastructure required to scale—examining how talent decisions, executive team design, and leadership assessment strategies are evolving to support sustained growth, innovation, and long-term enterprise value.
To register for Hunt Scanlon Media’s upcoming conference please click here!
Based in West Hartford, CT, Academic Career & Executive Search focuses on executive search services, career planning, and candidate coaching. Specializing in challenging faculty to senior administrative positions, the firm offers six a la carte services spanning full search, candidate generation, interim, multi-hire, and contingency search. Candidate support services include webinars, career planning, and candidate coaching. Its team has served in virtually every capacity in higher education including president, vice president, provost, dean, chief human resources officer, and faculty members across all types and sizes of institutions.
Ms. Muller has more than 20 years of research and development experience in higher education and Fortune 500 companies. She has led over 70 higher education searches both domestically and internationally spanning presidents, vice presidents, associate chancellors, deans, directors, chairs, and faculty level positions. Ms. Muller is former vice chair of the American Council on Education (ACE) Executive Search Roundtable and serves as an advisor in the numerous ACE leadership development forums.
Related: Academic Career & Executive Search Retained by Briar Cliff University to Find New CFO
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
