Four campus members were among those recently elected to membership on the Ithaca College Board of Trustees as community trustees. Elia Kacapyr, Margie Malepe, and Kip Opperman will each serve for three years representing faculty, staff, and alumni, respectively, while Raphael Golberstein will serve for two years as student trustee.
Also joining the board recently as term trustees, who will each serve for the next four years, were: Caroleen Feeney, David Fleisher, Jack Gallagher, and Daniel Karson.
Elia Kacapyr
Professor and chair of the Department of Economics, Kacapyr has been teaching at Ithaca College for 19 years. He is currently serving as president of the New York State Economics Association. His College service has included membership on the School of Humanities and Sciences Curriculum Committee, Academic Policies Committee, Comparative Institutions Task Force, and Committee on Instructional Evaluation.
Kacapyr's research on macroeconomic theory and measurement of economic activity has been published and presented at numerous conferences. His continuing projects include the monthly updating of the Index of Economic Activity in Tompkins County, a data service of Ithaca College that monitors monthly fluctuations in local jobs, retail sales, and other economic indicators. He has served as a faculty consultant to the Educational Testing Service Corporation and for two years was a contributing editor to "American Demographics" magazine.
Kacapyr earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and holds master's and doctoral degrees from Georgia State University.
Margie Malepe
During her 17 years of employment at Ithaca College, Malepe has held several managerial positions, most of them with the Office of Conference and Event Services. Currently the associate director of that office, she is responsible for coordinating and administering event planning, special programs, marketing, and personnel.
Malepe has served on a number of campus bodies, including the Campus Life Awards, Safety Awareness, Relay for Life, Celebration of Service, Commencement, and Staff Benefits committees.
Prior to joining the College, Malepe held positions as assistant to the director of student activities at Mohawk Valley Community College and director/conference coordinator in the Student Affairs Office at the State University of New York College at Cortland.
Malepe holds a bachelor's degree in history and secondary education from SUNY Cortland.
William "Kip" Opperman
A 1979 graduate of the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance, Opperman operates his own firm, KipOpp Consulting. The Ithaca-based consulting service provides guidance on all aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as sign-language-interpreting services for the deaf.
Opperman previously served for 12 years as director of disability services at Boston University. He has held leadership roles with the Massachusetts Association on Higher Education and Disability and the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing and is a member of the National Association for the Deaf.
Actively involved in numerous Ithaca College alumni efforts, Opperman served in 1998–99 as interim assistant director of the Office of Alumni Relations. A nine-year member and former vice president of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, he has also been a career network volunteer, a reunion class chair, and a club coordinator for the Boston Alumni Club.
Raphael Golberstein
Golberstein plans to graduate from the College in 2006 with a major in cinema and photography and minors in Jewish studies and in culture and communication.
His campus leadership activities include serving on the boards of Hillel and the Interfaith Council as well as treasurer of the Friends of Israel. He also works as a resident assistant, endeavoring to foster a sense of community among some 90 students living in a campus housing unit.
Golberstein is active in a program that brings local Holocaust survivors to campus to speak with first-year students and has helped organize a series of cross-departmental film screenings. Last November he gave a guest lecture, "Sergi Eisenstein's Influence on the Representation of Time and Space in Film," at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Caroleen Feeney
A 1986 drama graduate of Ithaca College, Feeney is a film and theater actress who has appeared in a number of productions in the United States and Europe. Her most recent film, the comedy "Duane Incarnate," premiered in May at the Tribeca Film Festival. She has had a leading or supporting role in "Denise Calls Up" -- which won a special mention at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival -- "Bad Manners," "In the Weeds," "The Truth about Miranda," and "Avalanche." In 1992 she received positive reviews for her supporting role in the play "Remembrance" at the John Houseman Theater in New York City. She has also had roles in European stagings of "Iphigenie" and "Much Ado about Nothing."
At Ithaca College, Feeney studied under Greg Bostwick and Arno Selco in the Department of Theatre Arts. Following graduation, she went on to study acting at the London Theatre School in England and the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. She has provided funding for the Richard M. Clark Endowed Scholarship Fund and for the Leesa Noury Endowed Fund, which supports presentations, performances, demonstrations, and workshops given by alumni for current theater students.
In addition to pursuing her acting career, Feeney is a trustee of the French American Charitable Trust (FACT), a family charitable trust that awards grants to about 40 agencies that use a community-based model for implementing social change, emphasizing community organizing in the areas of social and economic justice.
David Fleisher
A 1991 graduate of the School of Business, Fleisher is executive vice president of, and a managing partner in, Progress Financial Resources, a 30-person financial management firm in Philadelphia. In addition to designing investment portfolios and corporate benefits packages for individuals, Fleischman oversees the company's marketing and compliance functions.
A member of the Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Township Council since 1997, Fleisher was elected president of the township's governing body in 2002. Last year the "Philadelphia Business Journal" presented him with its annual "40 under 40" award, which recognizes dynamic professionals under the age of 40 for their commitment to professional excellence and community involvement.
Fleisher was a member of the Ithaca College Alumni Association Board of Directors for nine years, serving for three years as its president. An active member of the School of Business Volunteer Committee, he has been an integral part of the school's Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series.
John "Jack" E. Gallagher Jr.
Though he is a 1969 graduate of the School of Music, Gallagher made his professional mark in the world of finance. He is a retired vice president of public finance for Fannie Mae, the nation's largest source of financing for home mortgages. He joined that organization in 1984 as director of community development and was then promoted to director of finance. He was named vice president in 1991. His chief responsibility in that office was to direct the company's investment in tax-exempt and taxable housing revenue bonds to finance mortgages for predominately lower income first-time homebuyers and providers of affordable rental housing.
A member of the School of Business Campaign Committee, Gallagher also belongs to the President's Associates, a select group of friends and alumni who generously support the College with gifts of time and money. He and his wife have hosted a number of alumni events, including a recent President's Associates reception and a freshman send-off party.
Daniel Karson
With over 25 years of experience directing investigations of business crimes and regulatory violations, Karson is executive managing director and counsel for Kroll Inc., the world's leading independent risk consulting company. He has taken part in corruption investigations against former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos and former Haiti president Jean Claude Duvalier and is the author of numerous published articles on conducting internal corporate investigations, due diligence investigations, and tracing concealed assets.
A 1969 politics graduate of Ithaca College, Karson holds a law degree from New York University School of Law. Prior to joining Kroll, he served for nine years as a prosecutor in New York City, holding positions as general counsel and assistant commissioner of the Department of Investigation of the City of New York, director of the New York City Inspector General Program, and an assistant district attorney for Bronx County.
While a student, Karson served as president of the Student Government Association and as chair of Student Congress. He was a member of the Political Science Club.
Contributed by David Maley
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20040623151932717