It's with both pleasure and sadness that the Park School will celebrate the upcoming retirements of two veteran staff members, Chris Wheatley and Phil Wacker-Hoeflin.
Chris Wheatley, the Manager of TV and Radio Operations, began his relationship with IC as a student who was passionately involved in WICB. He earned his Planned Studies degree here in 1981, pursued a career in local radio, and was lured back to advise WICB-FM and VIC radio in 1985. Along the way he earned a master's degree in communications here, mentored thousands of students who won many regional and national awards for their own work and for the stations overall (including Top College Radio Station by the Princeton Review), expanded his duties to include supervising ICTV, and earned the Distinguished Adviser award from the College Media Association in 2015. Chris has the unique ability to create a climate of "serious fun" and has a remarkable way of supporting student leaders who produce hundreds of hours of radio each week as well as more than 20 different TV shows each semester.
Phil Wacker-Hoeflin is the Cinema Production Support Engineer on the Park School Technical Operations team, but that title doesn't begin to describe either his duties or passions. He is also an alumnus, earning his bachelor's degree Magna cum Laude in Cinema and Photography in 1981. He joined our staff in 1991 and over the years has been responsible for the enormous job of keeping our portable production and post-production equipment and systems running smoothly. One can often hear him in heady discussions with students and colleagues about a range of topics, from cutting edge technology through media aesthetics to politics, and under his pen name "cinepost" writes a blog on Daily Kos covering topics such as confirmation bias and the nature of change.
The IC community is invited to a reception in their honor on Tuesday May 16 from 4-5:30 in Park 223 (our reception room). If you'd like to donate to going away presents, please see Gwen Benners in the Park School Deans' office.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Gwen Benners at gbenners@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-3895. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20170511095105874