Nearly a Century of Service and Experience Among College of Nursing and Public Health Advisory Board

The 13 College of Nursing and Public Health Advisory Board members have amassed nearly a century of service to the College.

Of those, the six members serving on the board the longest (six years or more) account for the lion’s share of those years.

Jerry Landsberg said he has served on the CNPH Advisory Board for more than 40 years, dating back to 1979. He joined the original board started four decades ago by Jacqueline Rose Hott ’89, and is the only member of that board who is still serving.

Landsberg described his work on the board as “very gratifying.” It’s hard to cite his greatest accomplishment since the board’s role is “more of a collective thing,” rather than individual, he noted. If he could point to one thing, he said, it would “probably be encouraging the professors and the dean to continue their good work.”

He said that the Nexus Building, which opened in Fall 2016, was “very needed and well deserved” by the College. The old Alumnae Hall, which once was a dormitory building for the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, was “very inadequate,” he added.

Today, he said, Dean Elaine Smith ’78, MS ’88, EdD, is “looking more and more [to the board] for advice and opinions, and she seems to be taking them to heart.”

Frank Gumper has worked with Adelphi for more than a decade, first brought in by its former president, Robert Scott, PhD, to help on Office of University Advancement campaigns.

When former CNPH Dean Patrick Coonan ’78, EdD, decided to revive the advisory board, “I was asked by him to join,” said Gumper, who has been a Verizon Communications executive and a board member of the Lamon-Doherty Earth Observatory.

As for accomplishments, Gumper said, “I felt the advancement department should focus more on getting nursing alumni to contribute directly to the College. I feel this effort has borne fruit over the past few years, as can be seen by the dramatic increase in endowed scholarships given each year to nursing students.”

Looking ahead, Gumper felt, “Now that Elaine has been made dean, the board will become more active and she will be willing to move the board in new directions. I have been a member of the advisory board for over a decade and plan to work with her as she takes the board in new directions.”

Gumper said, “I got associated with nursing as a way to honor my mother’s memory after she passed away” in 2002, with the B. Loretta Gumper vomLehn Memorial Scholarship. She was an alum from the Class of 1967.

Longtime advisory board members Veronica Groth ’84, Lori Ginsberg ’76 and Ronnie Leibowitz ’61 are CNPH alumnae—as are five newcomers who came aboard within the past two years: Leslie Marentis ’78, Kathleen Masiulis ’78, MS ’85, Carolyn Quinn ’87, Dianne Wamsley ’84 and Eileen Williamson ’85.