Five join Conn’s Board of Trustees; Seth Alvord ’93 elected chair

Five alumni recently joined Connecticut College’s Board of Trustees, while Seth Alvord ’93 was elected chair. Peter Skaperdas P’17 and Dwayne Stallings ’99 will serve as vice chairs along with Maria Wyckoff Boyce ’85, who will continue her service. The new board members and officers began their tenures on July 1. 

New Officers

Seth Alvord ’93, Chair

Alvord, who first joined the board in 2016, is the founder and managing partner of Balance Point Capital Partners, a private equity investment company. Prior to founding Balance Point Capital, he held various positions in the investment banking industry, including the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley.

At Connecticut College, Alvord majored in political science and was a member of the men's rowing team. In 1998, he earned an MBA from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University, where he was awarded the A. Donald Kelso Award, which is given to individuals who have contributed significantly to the advancement of the school.

Alvord previously served as a trustee and vice chair of the board of the Northfield Mount Hermon School, where he served on the investment committee and as chair of the financial policy committee. At Conn, he has met with members of the Peggotty Investment Club to discuss careers in the investment field and participated in club panel discussions on capital markets.

Peter Skaperdas P’17, Vice Chair

Skaperdas, a member of the board since 2017, is a senior vice president and a private wealth adviser at UBS Financial, a global provider of financial services to private, corporate and institutional clients. His prior positions include chief U.S. economist for UBS, senior economist at Salomon Brothers and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Skaperdas earned his bachelor of science in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois in 1975 and a holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin. He is a past president of the Board of Directors of the New Canaan YMCA and has served as president of the Connecticut Grand Opera and Orchestra. He currently serves on the board of Crossing Thresholds, which builds schools in Kenya.

Dwayne Stallings ’99, Vice Chair

Stallings, who first joined the board in 2018, is a Raymond James financial adviser and vice president of Liberty Bank in Mystic, Connecticut. Previously, he was a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch in New London. He had been named one of the Top 100 Financial Advisers in America by Bank Investment Consultant magazine.

At Conn, Stallings majored in history and participated in varsity basketball, club baseball and theater, and was an active member of Unity House. In his senior year, he served as captain of the men’s varsity basketball team and led the team in scoring during the Camels’ historic 28-1 run, which saw them ranked No. 1 in the country and advancing to the Final Four of the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball tournament. Stallings was inducted into the Connecticut College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018 and is also a member of the New London Athletic Hall of Fame and the New England Athletic Hall of Fame.

After graduating from Conn, Stallings played professional basketball in Europe. He now works closely with the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England, where he assists students with finding internships and jobs. Stallings hosts several financial panels each year in the UK on behalf of the UEA. He also funds the UEA Dwayne C. Stallings scholarship.

New Trustees

Erica Lovett ’14

Erica Lovett is vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion for North America at Cartier. Prior to joining Cartier, she served as the director of inclusion and diversity at Condé Nast. She has been recognized by the National Diversity Council as one of the Top 50 Leaders in Entertainment, The Root 100’s Most Influential African Americans, Marie Claire magazine’s Fashion Changemakers and Essence magazine’s Power 40 List of Influential Business Leaders.

At Conn, Lovett majored in history and served as the alumni liaison for Umoja, as an admission tour guide and as a student worker for Reunion weekend. In her junior year, she was selected by the Board of Trustees to be a student representative on the Presidential Search Committee. She was also a member of the Senior Giving Committee.

Lovett sits on the board of Cartier Philanthropy and the associate board of Oliver Scholars. She is passionate about environmental conservation and is an avid supporter of the U.S. National Parks.

Jonathan Stavin ’85

Jonathan Stavin is the founder and managing member of Newtrack Development Group, LLC, a real estate consulting firm. Previously, he served as executive vice president of Philadelphia-based PMC Property Group Inc., senior vice president at CBRE and vice president of the commercial division at Binswanger.

Stavin majored in government at Conn and earned a law degree from Dickinson School of Law in 1991. While at Conn, he developed a love of art, art history and political science and was active on Class Council and served as a tour guide and admission associate. He credits his education with guiding him as an elected City Committee official and as a patron and board member of arts organizations. He has developed an extensive collection of paintings with an emphasis on emerging Philadelphia artists and graduates of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Stavin serves as vice chair of the Pennsylvania Ballet. He is a former board member of the Pennsylvania Apartment Association and the Business Industry Association of Philadelphia.

Susan Stiritz ’65

Susan Stiritz is a professor of practice at The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and serves as chair of the sexual health and education specialization in the Master of Social Work program. Her research centers on holistic, inclusive sexuality education and developmental sexuality. She is also a certified sexuality educator, a certified sexuality educator supervisor and a member of the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute faculty.

Stiritz majored in English at Conn and earned a master’s degree in English and American literature in 1968, an MBA in 1987, a Ph.D. in English and American literature in 2001 and an MSW in 2010.

She is a past president of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists and has served numerous terms on the board of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. She has served as a member of Washington University’s LGBT advisory board and was awarded Holobaugh Honors for service to and advocacy for the LGBT community. In 2013, she was honored as the AASECT Sexuality Educator of the Year and was named a Washington University Distinguished Alumna in 2014. In April 2024, The Gephardt Institute awarded Dr. Stiritz Washington University’s Gerry and Bob Virgil Ethic of Service Award for her engagement with and contributions to the St. Louis region.

Anne Verplanck ’80

Anne Verplanck is an emeritus associate professor of American studies at Penn State University’s Harrisburg campus. She taught courses in American art and visual culture, social and cultural history, American decorative arts and material culture, and museum and heritage studies. Prior to joining the Penn State Harrisburg faculty in 2010, she worked in the museum field for 30 years. Until 2009, she was the curator of prints and paintings at Winterthur Museum, where she also served as interim director of museum collections and interim director of the Research Fellowship Program.

Verplanck majored in history and botany at Conn and earned her master’s and Ph.D. in American studies from the College of William and Mary. Since graduation, she has served as a Reunion committee member and as a class gift officer/ chair. In 2015, she was awarded the Alumni Tribute Award for extraordinary service to the College.

Verplanck is the vice chair of the Alumni Executive Committee at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts; a board member of the American Historical Print Collector’s Society; and a member of the Kennett Township Planning Commission in Pennsylvania. Previously, she served as a board member and campaign co-chair of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, co-chair of the Material Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association and board member for the Association of Print Scholars.

Shawnia Yon ’24, Young Alumni Trustee

Shawnia Yon was elected by the Class of 2024 to serve as a Young Alumni Trustee. At Conn, she was a dance and economics double major and scholar in the Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation, Value and Change Pathway. Yon is currently focusing on her business, Prep for Excellence LLC, a mentoring program designed to assist high school students with all aspects of the college process, including financial aid assistance, scholarship searches, interview preparation and essay compilation. She is also pursuing a professional dance career.

During her time at Conn, Yon was the recipient of the Connecticut College Bookshop Prize, the Martha Myers Prize and the José Limón Award. She participated in numerous clubs, including Dance Club, 2024 Finance Cohort, Women of Color Collective, the Black Student Union, and the Peggotty Investment Club, where she pitched for a GlaxoSmithKline investment that led to the club’s first holding in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) sector.

Yon also served as a student adviser for the Office of the First-Year Deans, a senior admission fellow, a Hale Center pre-business career fellow, an Alumni and Parent Engagement Office fellow, a New London High School Mentorship Program mentor, a Genesis Mentorship Program Big Sib and H.E.R.D. Mentorship Program mentee. She founded the Unity Gala, an event designed to foster inclusivity and cohesion within the campus community, and studied abroad at the Universidad Del Pacífico in Lima, Peru, where she was recognized by her peers with the Outstanding Delegate Award for her exceptional contributions as a class representative.