Quinnipiac University named a permanent Title IX coordinator Wednesday, eight days after its long-term interim coordinator resigned and more than a year after its last permanent coordinator left.
David Fryson, interim vice president for equity and inclusion, announced in a Jan. 31 email that Patricio Jimenez, an experienced lawyer and veteran Title IX administrator, will take over as Quinnipiac’s new coordinator on March 11.
Interim Title IX Coordinator Brittany Swett will continue serving as the university’s chief Title IX compliance officer in the meantime.
Jimenez — who Fryson described as a “seasoned Title IX practitioner” with “great expertise in providing sexual misconduct and Title IX training” — currently serves as a Title IX investigator at Syracuse University. He previously served as a senior investigator and Title IX coordinator at Brooklyn College. The Hofstra School of Law graduate has also worked in private practice and as an assistant district attorney in New York.
Wednesday’s announcement comes amid a chaotic year for Quinnipiac’s Title IX office. Come March, Jimenez will be the university’s fourth acting coordinator in 14 months.
Case in point, Jimenez’s appointment is barely a week removed from the appointment of his predecessor. Swett’s tenure as interim coordinator began only eight days ago when the university’s last acting coordinator, Sarah Hellyar, resigned.
But she too was an interim. Quinnipiac officials tapped Hellyar, the then-Title IX investigator, to serve as interim after the university’s most recent permanent Title IX coordinator, Dennis Kwarteng, suddenly left in January 2023.
The university intended to install Kwarteng’s successor by July of last year, but Hellyar remained on double-duty — serving as both the coordinator and the investigator — until her Jan. 23 resignation.
A Jan. 30 post on Quinnipiac’s official job listings page indicates that the university is actively searching for a new Title IX investigator.
The resignations within the university’s Title IX office are part of a larger pattern of recent departures within Quinnipiac’s diversity ranks. It is still unclear, however, what is fueling the string of administrative resignations.
