Goldring Arts Journalism

Career Development

Goldring Arts Journalism Program
Advisory Board Members

The advisory board provides leadership and support to the Goldring Arts Journalism Program. Advisory board members help our students tap into a network of outstanding journalists in a variety of media.

Lola Goldring is a member of the Syracuse University Board of Trustees. She is managing director of the Goldring Family Charitable Foundation and a philanthropic participant in cultural and scientific endeavors including an endowed professorship in cardiology and a clinical research scholar's fund at the New York University School of Medicine. The fund also supports postdoctoral scientists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. Goldring earned an M.S. in speech education from Columbia University's Teachers College in 1953 and taught in the Great Neck High School system. Followed by her daughter and granddaughter, she is the first of three generations to attend Syracuse University. Goldring is a supporter of the New York City ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, and has been actively involved with the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York from its inception in 1977. Goldring is married to Allen, and has three children, Laurie ('76), Jamie, and David, and seven grandchildren. She has sponsored the development of the Goldring Arts Journalism program at Syracuse University.

Hope Barkan is an independent art curator and collector. Most recently, she curated the exhibition "From the Kilns of Denmark: Contemporary Danish Ceramics," which toured five museums in the United States, Paris and Berlin. The Danish government recently extended the tour to Switzerland and Demark. In conjunction with that exhibition, Barkan, together with her co-curator, produced a 116-page color catalog and a 27-minute video. She has curated ceramic, drawing and photographic exhibitions at the Boston Athenaeum, the Harvard Club of Boston and various art galleries. She serves as a Trustee of Massachusetts College of Art, on the Board of the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Wiscassett, Maineand on the AdvisoryBoard of the Tufts Museum of Art. She has also served on the Board of the Robert F. Kennedy Children's Action Corp and the Fine Arts Committee of the Harvard Club. She has a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University and a master's degree in Art History from Tufts University. She and her husband, Mel, live in Boston.

Warren G. Bodow ('60) is the retired president of New York Times Company radio stations WQXR and WQEW. He served as the first Chairman of the Dean's Advisory Board of the Newhouse School, as well as Chairman of the National Arts & Business Council, Inc. While at the Times' radio stations, he served as President of the New York State Broadcasters' Association and a term as Chairman Of The Concert Music Broadcasters' Association. He lives with his wife, Ellen, in New York City And Tucson, Arizona, where he has worked as a consultant to the University Of Arizona Public Radio Stations.

Ronald Feldman received a J.D. from New York University Law School in 1962. With Frayda Feldman, he opened Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., in 1971. The gallery has mounted nearly 250 solo and group exhibitions and has exhibited the work of more than 1,000 artists. Feldman serves on the boards of Exit Art, the Research Center for Arts & Culture at Columbia University, the Creative Capital Foundation, the Art Dealers Association of America, and the People for the American Way Foundation. In 1993, he was appointed by President Clinton to the National Council on the Arts, where he served for five years. He has been an adjunct professor of art history at Brown University, and is currently writing a book examining the content of art through the centuries.

Eric Grode '94 has been chief theatre critic for the New York Sun since 2005. Prior to that, he was a critic at Broadway.com, Back Stage, and Time Out New York. He has also written about theatre, books, film, television, and music for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, American Theatre (where he received an Affiliated Writer fellowship), The Boston Phoenix, FHM, and Playbill.com. His arts writing dates back to his time at Syracuse University, where he served as theatre critic of the Daily Orange. Eric also works as a copy editor for the "T" magazine group at the New York Times; his past copy editing experience includes several years as the copy chief at TV Guide. He lives in the Bronx with his wife, Beth, a psychiatrist.

Ralph C. Guild is Chairman and CEO of Interep, the largest independent national sales and marketing organization specializing in radio and the Internet. Guild joined McGavren Radio, a radio advertising representation firm based in San Francisco, in the late 1950s, and opened the company's first East Coast office in New York. In the late 1960s, the company was renamed McGavren Guild, and Guild became President and COO. In 1981, he created Interep Radio as the holding company for what he envisioned as a group of radio rep firms united under a single corporate umbrella, which has since become the standard operating structure for radio and TV rep companies. In 1986, under Guild's stewardship, Interep launched Group W Radio Sales, the first rep firm dedicated exclusively to one broadcast group, which ultimately became CBS Radio Sales. Other dedicated rep companies created by Interep include ABC Radio Sales and Susquehanna Radio Sales. Today, Interep represents more than 2,000 radio stations nationwide. Guild was inducted into Broadcasting & Cable Magazine's Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Broadcaster's Hall of Fame in 1998. He received the 1998 Golden Mike Award from the Broadcasters Foundation and the 1999 UJA-Federation's Radio Group Award for his achievements in radio. In 2000, Howard University honored Mr. Guild for his support of its communications graduates and for his pioneering work in creating diversity in the national rep industry. The Black Broadcasters Alliance selected him as its 2001 Golden Mike Award honoree for his efforts in supporting African Americans in attaining their career goals in media sales. He received the 2001 Gold Apple from the International Radio and Television Society, and American Women in Radio and Television honored him with a 2002 Golden Apple Award for his continued support of female leadership in the workforce. He was most recently inducted into the California Broadcaster's Association Hall of Fame. He is a trustee of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York and Los Angeles, and of the University of the Pacific, which recently gave him an honorary doctoral degree.

Jack Myers has authored two books, Adbashing and Reconnecting with Customers: Building Brands & Profits in The Relationship Age. In Reconnecting he explains why the irrevocable trend in today's global marketplace is away from commoditization and toward marketing and brand-based relationships. He has won journalism's most prestigious honor, the George Foster Peabody Award and is the winner of the Crystal Heart Award from the Heartland Film Festival. He produced the World Music Awards from Monte Carlo and has been nominated for Academy and Emmy awards for best documentary. Myers is a board member of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, serves on the Advisory Board for the Department of Culture and Communications at New York University, is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and serves on the boards of several charitable organizations.

His new book, VIRTUAL WORLDS: Rewiring Your Emotional Future, is being published this Spring.

Howard Polskin is a communications consultant based in Manhattan, where he has worked on a variety of assignments for some of the world's largest media companies. He has an extensive background in public relations, communications and journalism. From 2000 to 2003, Polskin held the position of Vice President, Communications, for Sony Corporation of America, the parent company of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Electronics Inc. Prior to joining Sony, he worked for Turner Broadcasting. From 1994 to 1999, Polskin was CNN Vice President, Public Relations. He joined Turner Broadcasting in 1993 as Vice President of Public Relations for the Turner Entertainment Group. From 1983 to 1992, Polskin worked as a staff writer in the New York bureau of TV Guide, where he wrote extensively about TV news and programming trends. He has written freelance articles for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Premiere and New York Magazine. Polskin also worked as CNN's on-camera media analyst from 1989 to 1993. Additionally, he co-authored the book Don't Quit (Warner Books) with Jake Steinfeld in 1993.

Ned Rifkin ('72) is the present Under Secretary for Art at the Smithsonian Institution. Previous positions include Director of The Menil Foundation and Collection and the Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. Ned has a MA degree from University of Michigan and a PhD. in history of art from University of Michigan. Ned lives in Washington DC.

David A. Ross, a founder and the current Chairman of the Curatorial Committee of the Artists' Pension Trust, New York, and an independent curator. Previously, Mr. Ross was director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 1998 through 2001. At SFMOMA he was responsible for a period of unprecedented growth in the size and quality of the museum's permanent collection, and oversaw a period during which the museum's membership achieved record high levels of 43,000 and annual attendance averaged near 800,000. Prior to this, he had served as director of the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1991 till 1998. At the Whitney, Mr. Ross also focused on the museum's permanent collection, enhancing the quality of its historical and contemporary collections, starting a photography collection, and leading the museum to build a new floor of galleries expressly for the museum's pre-war collections. Widely known as a strong champion of contemporary artists, Ross, while Whitney director, insisted that the museum take a very public stand in support of artists' rights.

Mr. Ross has been an art museum professional since 1971 when he was named the world's first Curator of Video Art at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. He has organized over one hundred exhibitions of 20th century art, is widely published, and has lectured at museums and universities around the world. Mr. Ross has been involved in the organization and jurying process of major international exhibitions including Documenta, the Venice Biennale, and The Carnegie International. Prior to his appointment at the Whitney Museum, Mr. Ross served in a number of key curatorial and administrative positions at several important American museums. From 1982 through 1990, Mr. Ross was director of Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. During that time, he also served as founding chairman of the Federal Advisory Commission on Major International Exhibitions, co-founded the Contemporary Art Television Fund and taught a senior seminar on contemporary art at Harvard University. From 1977 through 1982, Mr. Ross was Assistant Director for Collections and Programs and Chief Curator at the University Art Museum, Berkeley. While working at the UAM, he taught a course in the history of video art and performance at the San Francisco Art Institute, also serving on the Art Institute's Artist's Committee and Board of Trustees. Mr. Ross has served on policy and peer review panels of the National Endowment for the Arts since 1972. After three years of pioneering curatorial work in Syracuse, the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1975 appointed Mr. Ross to the position of deputy director and curator. While in Long Beach he spent the next three years working with I.M. Pei developing a plan for a new municipal museum. While working in Southern California, Mr. Ross also conducted graduate seminars at the University of California's San Diego and Irvine Campuses.

A former member of the American Association of Museum Directors, (1981 -2001), Mr. Ross is an honorary member of the Board of Trustees of the ICA, Boston, has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Tiffany Foundation, the Exhibitions Advisory Committee of the American Federation of the Arts, and the media arts policy committee of the Rockefeller Foundation. A board member of the Anaphiel Foundation in Miami, Florida, he currently serves on, the Committee Scientifico of the Fondazione CRT in Turin, Italy, the Curatorial Advisory Committee of La Caixa in Barcelona, Spain, as a trustee of the American Anti-Slavery Group, the Board of Trustees of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and is a Director of Rhizome.org -a non-profit media arts organization affiliated with the New Museum in New York City.

Arielle Tepper began producing theater on Broadway in 1998. Her work has received 13 Tony nominations. Currently, she is represented on Broadway with A Raisin in the Sun starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, three-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan, as well as The Royal National Theater's production of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers. Off Broadway she is currently represented by De La Guarda's Villa Villa, now in its sixth year and Tristine Skyler's The Moonlight Room. She recently produced Bounce by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, directed by Harold Prince at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Tepper's Broadway credits include the Tony Award-winning Hollywood Arms, written by Carol Burnett and her daughter, Carrie Hamilton, and directed by Harold Prince, starring Linda Lavin and Michele Pawk in a Tony Award-winning performance; A Class Act (five Tony Nominations, including Best Musical); Tony Award-winning James Joyce's The Dead (five Tony Nominations, including Best Musical) starring Christopher Walken and Blair Brown; John Leguizamo's Freak (two Tony Award Nominations, including Best Play); Sandra Bernhard's I'm Still Here ... Damn It; and George C. Wolfe's Harlem Song at the legendary Apollo Theatre. She also has produced The Last Five Years (two Drama Desk Awards), written by Jason Robert Brown and directed by Daisy Prince, and Goodnight Children Everywhere by Richard Nelson (originally produced at The Royal Shakespeare Company), which won the 2000 Olivier Award for Best Play. Upcoming Broadway shows include: The National Theater's production of Democracy by Michael Frayn and Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. Opening in Chicago this Christmas is Spamelot, based on the film Monty Python and The Holy Grail by Eric Idle, directed by Mike Nichols. Tepper's first feature film, 30 Days, premiered at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival and was released nationally in September 2000. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the League of American Theaters and Producers. Tepper is a member of the Board of Trustees of Syracuse University. She also served on the Chancellor's Council and the College of Visual & Performing Arts Advisory Board, and has served as a panelist for the VPA Department of Drama.

Joyce M. Tudryn is president of The International Radio & Television Society Foundation, a nonprofit membership organization that assures that the skills and ideals of today's professionals are passed on to future generations of media leaders. Tudryn began her career as a member of the editorial staff in the radio department at the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. She has experience as a magazine columnist, as well as a video producer for the public affairs department in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This past year, the Broadcast Education Association saluted Tudryn with its highest honor-the Distinguished Education Service Award-and she was named as one of the "50 Most Influential Women in Radio" by Radio Ink magazine. She received the National Advisory Board Member of the Year Award from the National Broadcasting Society in 2001. Tudryn also serves as an advisory board member of the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where she received a degree in public relations.

Diane Weathers ('71) is Editor-At-Large for ESSENCE Magazine, the country's leading lifestyle magazine for African-American women. Weathers, who had prior stints at ESSENCE, returned in 2001 to serve as the magazine's Editor-in-Chief until 2005 when she decided to devote more time to writing and family. She is currently working on a novel and a screenplay. As Editor-at-Large, she will continue to write for ESSENCE.

Weathers has been Senior Editor, News Features, at Redbook Magazine and an associate editor at Consumer Reports. She was also a member of the senior editorial team at ESSENCE from 1993 to 1997, during which time she developed story ideas, worked with freelancers and frequently wrote feature stories on a broad variety of social issues.

She began her publishing career at Black Enterprise covering subjects of interest to African-American professionals and small-business owners. She has also worked at Newsweek, as a writer covering fashion, lifestyle and religion, and then as a Washington-bureau correspondent. Weathers has also been an information officer for the United Nations (U.N.) World Food Program.

Stephen Wilkes' photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the nation and featured in the New York Times Magazine, Life, Time, Parade, London Sunday Times, and Travel + Leisure. In 2000, Epson America commissioned Wilkes to create a millennial portrait of the United States, a 52-day odyssey that resulted in a critically acclaimed exhibition that traveled to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. His book Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom (W.W. Norton) was published in 2006. Wilkes was featured on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon of NPR and the book received high critical acclaim including Time Magazine's 5 Best Photography Books of The Year 2006.

Educated at Syracuse University's S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Wilkes awards and honors include the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, Photographer of the Year from Adweek Magazine, Fine Art Photographer of the Year 2004 Lucie Award, and the Epson Creativity Award. Wilkes' work is in the permanent collection of the International Museum of Photography in the George Eastman House.

In 1999 Wilkes completed a personal project photographing the south side of Ellis Island: the ruined landscape of the infectious disease and psychiatric hospital wings, where children and adults alike were detained before they could enter America. Through his photographs and video work, Wilkes has inspired and helped secure $6 million in funding towards the restoration for the south side of the island.

Wilkes also shoots advertising campaigns for many of the country's leading agencies and corporations, including PepsiCo, American Express, Nike, Sony, AT&T, Rolex, J. Walter Thompson, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, and Rubin Postaer among others.

Wilkes is currently represented by Clampart Galley in New York, Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe and David Gallery , Los Angeles.
www.stephenwilkes.com

The board of advisors notes with great sadness the passing of Allen Goldring (business leader, philanthropist, and husband of Lola Goldring) and Marcia Tucker (art curator and Goldring Advisory Board member) in 2006.