In an email to the Ithaca College community, David Lissy ’87, chair of the board of trustees (BOT), and President La Jerne Cornish announced the elections of the new chair and vice chair of the board Feb. 19. 

The BOT is the legal and governing entity of the college. It is responsible for academic policies and goals and grants degrees to students. The chair and vice chair govern the overall body of the BOT and ensure the trustees work together as a whole. 

Lissy and Cornish announced John Neeson ’84 was elected as the board’s new chair and Christopher D. Palmieri ’96 was elected vice chair of the board of trustees. The elections took place during the board’s annual winter retreat in Los Angeles Feb. 7–9. The board convenes each winter and spring. 

Neeson co-founded SiriusDecisions in 2001, a market research and advisory firm, and is the co-chair for the Philanthropy and Engagement committee and also sits on the Marketing and Enrollment Strategy committee for the college.

Palmieri is the president and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA), a nonprofit healthcare organization based in Massachusetts. Palmieri sits on the BOT’s Marketing and Enrollment Strategy committee and the Finance and Investment committee as the co-chair. 

The board also tenured and promoted 15 faculty members to associate professor, named two as Dana professors and designated eight retired faculty as emeritus — retired faculty members that have made contributions to the college after retirement. 

The professors tenured and promoted to associate professor were Xinxin Li, Brad Lewter, Mitch McCabe, Angela Rulffes, M. Nicole Horsley, Lisa Corewyn, Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, Alexis Becker, Eric Steinschneider, Jerome Fung, Eric Leibensperger, Sergio Cabrera, David Earll, Marc Gomes and Beatrice Olesko. 

The two newly named Dana professors are Wendy Dann, professor in the Department of Theater Studies and Andrew Smith, professor in the Department of Biology. The professors named professor emeriti that retired in 2022 are Gordon Rowland, Charles Ciccone and Stephen Mosher. The emeriti professors who retired in 2023 are Bernard Beins, Naeem Inayatullah, Frederik Kaufman, Stephen Mosher and Gary Wells. John Sigg retired in 2020 and was also named an emeritus professor. 

The next board of trustees meeting will be on campus, May 16–18.