Fidura came to Fairmont State as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs in July 1997 and served as Interim President from July 2000 to February 2001. He retired from full-time administration and teaching in June 2004 and since then has been actively involved in fundraising for Fairmont State. He served on the Executive Committee of Board of Directors of the Fairmont State Foundation, Inc. and was part of the team that successfully pursued funding for the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center. Fidura is known as the “father of Folklife studies” at Fairmont State.
A Cleveland, Ohio, native, Fidura earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Arts degree from Ohio University and a doctorate in experimental psychology from Michigan State University. He served as a faculty member and administrator at the State University of New York, College at Geneseo, from 1967 to 1997. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in experimental design and statistical analysis, cognitive psychology and learning, as well as undergraduate courses in computer science. Fidura lives in Fairmont with his wife, the former Patricia Murray, and has two sons, Gordon (Skip) of London, England, and Christian, who lives in Denver, Colo. Patti Murray-Fidura is an accountant in the Business Office of FSU and Pierpont Community & Technical College.
Bill Finley joined Fairmont State University in October 2006 in his current position as Director of Institutional Research. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Grove City College in biology and mathematics and a master’s degree from Lehigh University in mathematics. He is credited with considerable additional post-master’s work in statistics, analysis, and educational technology. Finley’s professional background includes Director of Research and Assessment at RACC, Research Scientist/Biostatistician at Lehigh Valley Hospital, Network, Director of Academic Computing and Network Administration at DeSales University, and university teaching experience at the University of Oklahoma, DeSales University, Lehigh University, as well as an adjunct position at FSU.
Finley has supported a variety of initiatives since coming to FSU, including the Voluntary System of Accountability, improved internal reporting, program reviews, publishing the Common Dataset, and supporting many areas of the institution with surveys and analysis.
Finley is a native of Scottdale, PA and currently resides in Fairmont. He enjoys yard work, developing software applications, a good game of chess, refinishing furniture, and is an avid reader.
Christina Lavorata serves as Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. She earned an Ed D in Curriculum and Instruction from West Virginia University, an MA in Elementary Education with Reading Emphasis from WVU, and a BA from Fairmont State College in Elementary Education with Social Studies concentration. She previously served Fairmont State University as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and as Professor of Education.
Lavorata is the past president of the West Virginia Association of Academic Administrators and belongs to the county, state, and national reading associations. While teaching in Marion County Public Schools, she was named Language Arts Teacher of the Year and County Teacher of the Year.
Lavorata enjoys participating in Fairmont State Fine Arts activities and has performed five times with the Collegiate Singers and twice in Town and Gown productions. She served as secretary to a United Way agency, The Connecting Link, for more than three years.
Rick Porto, Vice President for Administration and Fiscal Affairs, came to Fairmont State in 1995 as Assistant Vice President for Administration and Finance, acting as Chief Accounting Officer for the institution's annual operating budget of more than $65 million. Current oversight includes bond construction funds of $64 million. He has helped to implement a complete overhaul of the university's payroll and payroll budgeting systems including direct deposit of payroll checks. He has overseen a complete change in the way procurement of goods and services is accomplished and automation of student services provided by the student accounts office, as well as the installation of the Banner Finance Systems and Banner Accounts Receivable. He also has helped make budgets a stronger management tool and has helped strengthen benefits service and benefits accounting.
Porto was employed by West Virginia University for nearly 18 years, serving as an Accountant I/Assistant to the Controller, Bursar, Assistant Controller and Associate Controller-Systems and Production. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y.
Porto is married to Janice Marie Porto, who works for Fairmont State University in the GearUp office. They have three children: Christina Marie Lopez, who is working at Ruby Hospital as a Speech Pathologist, Averial Madonna, who is in her fourth year of Pharmacy School at WVU and participating in rotations, and Saturno Joseph, who is training for his Electrical Journeyman Certification.
David Tamm came to Fairmont State University in 2005 when he took on the duties of Director of Networks, Servers and Security. He has been in the Information Technology arena since 1988, when he began his career as a network and server engineer.
Tamm earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Central Michigan University and went on to pursue his Masters of Science in Information Management from Colorado Technical University.
He owned and operated a technology consulting company up in Michigan for seven years prior to selling the business and relocating to West Virginia.
At Fairmont State, Tamm and his team have been in charge of the ongoing maintenance of IT activities including a 24X7X365 data center, more than 2,000 campus phones, approximately 120 various servers, disaster recovery and LAN /WAN activities.
Tamm has overseen the campus network and security rebuild, along with the restructuring of the institution's active directory model. He has spearheaded the complete campus migration from a PBX to an all VOIP campus, thus saving the institution valuable resources. He has been the champion of numerous additional productivity/efficiency improvement projects including new unified voice mail servers, heightened on-campus emergency notification systems, cost analysis of current phone costs and maintenance costs for data center operations.
