President Joanne Berger-Sweeney announced the appointment of six new trustees to the Trinity College Board of Trustees. They officially begin their terms on July 1, 2024.
All the new trustees are alumni, and three are the parents of alumni. They are: Diane “Dede” DePatie Consoli ’88, P’19, ’22, James William “Jim” Cuminale ’75, P’09, Charity Elder ’00, Amanda Kauff Jacobson ’94, Joshua P. Newsome ’95, P’22, and Joanna Jeanne Scott ’82.
Read more about them below.
Diane “Dede” DePatie Consoli ’88, P’19, ’22
Dede DePatie Consoli ’88, P’19, ’22 owns Boxtree Interiors, an interior design firm based in New Canaan, Connecticut, that focuses on residential and commercial design. She spent her early career in the garment industry, rising to vice president of Nautica Sportswear. Consoli serves as a member of the board of the Westerly Hospital Foundation and the board of the Quonochontaug Central Beach Fire District in Rhode Island. She previously served on the Board of Directors and Board of Governors of Horizons at New Canaan Country School.
Consoli, who earned a B.A. in economics from Trinity, serves as vice chair of the Trinity College Fund. She previously served on the Board of Fellows and the Executive Committee of the Trinity College Alumni Association (formerly the National Alumni Association) and as a Parent Director. Consoli also is a member of the Founders Council of the Women’s Leadership Council and a founding member of the Trinity Squash Alumni Committee. In addition, she has volunteered as an admissions ambassador, alumni interviewer, class president, class agent, and Elms Society ambassador. In 2018, she was honored with the College’s Alumni Medal for Excellence.
Consoli and her husband, Victor ’87, live in New Canaan and Quonochontaug with daughters Olivia ’19 and Grace ’22. The family’s ties to the College run deep; Consoli’s late father, Thomas DePatie ’52, was a trustee, and a brother-in-law, Rob Buffum ’77, and a cousin, Peter DePatie ’86, also graduated from Trinity.
James W. Cuminale ’75, P’09
James W. Cuminale serves as senior advisor at PJT Partners, a financial services and mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, where he previously served as partner and general counsel. Prior to joining PJT, he served as chief legal officer of The Nielsen Company, the world’s leading market research firm. Before Nielsen, Cuminale was executive vice president and general counsel of PanAmSat, the world’s leading carrier of TV channels. Prior to that, he was a partner at Ivey, Barnum & O’Mara in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Cuminale graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Trinity with a B.A. in history and went on to earn a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School. In addition to serving on Trinity’s Board of Trustees from 2015 to 2023, he was a member of the College’s Board of Fellows. Cuminale also established an endowed scholarship, the Cuminale Family Scholarship Fund, to support students at Trinity. Other community involvement includes serving as a member and as president of the Vanderbilt University Law School Board of Advisors, as a member and as chair of the Greenwich Board of Education, and as chair of both the Greenwich Board of Social Services and the board of the Greenwich Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Cuminale and his wife, Cynthia A. Cuminale P’09, reside in Darien, Connecticut. Their daughter, Jennifer ’09, is a Trinity alumna.
Charity Elder ’00
Charity C. Elder, an instructor in Fordham University’s Department of Communication and Media Studies, is an award-winning journalist and media executive with more than two decades working in and leading broadcast and digital newsrooms. She previously served as a senior adviser to the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign, strategizing ways to engage the Black community. Prior to that, she was head of video and podcasts for Yahoo News, leading a team of innovative producers redefining news in the era of immersive journalism. Elder began her career at Emmy award-winning morning shows—with stints at NBC News and at CBS News—where she reported on stories of national import, including politics and natural disasters. In 2016, she was named to Folio magazine’s list of top women in media, and in 2017, she was selected and profiled for NYC Media’s The Vanguard: Women in Media. Elder recently published her first nonfiction book, Power: The Rise of Black Women in America (Skyhorse/Simon & Schuster).
Elder graduated with honors with a B.A. in sociology from Trinity and an M.A. in mass communication and journalism from New York University. She serves on the National Governing Board of Directors for the Jeremiah Program, a nonprofit that aims to break the cycle of poverty for single mothers and their children two generations at a time. She also is a former member of Trinity’s Board of Fellows.
Born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, she resides in New York.
Amanda Kauff Jacobson ’94
Amanda Jacobson is a leader in nonprofits, holding posts on several boards. In addition to her role on Trinity’s Board of Trustees, she serves on the board of Camp Sloane YMCA, which she attended for 13 years, and the Sconset Trust. She also volunteers her time with the Friends of Holland Park, the West London Synagogue, and Ubuntu Pathways. Jacobson previously served on Trinity’s Board of Fellows.
Jacobson earned a B.A. in art history from Trinity, spending part of her junior year in Florence, Italy, studying art history, architecture, and Italian language. She went on to work 11 years in book publishing in New York City, collaborating with authors including Michael Crichton, Bill Clinton, Haruki Murakami, and Anne Rice at firms including Random House, where she served as director of sales marketing of Alfred A. Knopf, and St. Martin’s Press, where she served as national account manager.
In 2005, Jacobson left her career in publishing to move to London with her husband, Blair; they continue to reside there with their two children.
Joshua P. Newsome ’95, P’22
Josh Newsome serves as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, leading one of the firm’s largest Private Wealth teams in the United States. He advises ultrahigh-net-worth families, privately held business owners, and nonprofits regarding asset allocation and portfolio strategy. Newsome joined Goldman Sachs in 1996 as an analyst in the Chicago office and was named to his current post in 2013. He earned a B.A. in classics from Trinity.
Newsome also serves on the boards of several nonprofits, including Scholarships for Illinois Residents, which helps send Illinois students to Trinity College; the Les Turner ALS Foundation; and the Church of the Holy Comforter in Kenilworth, Illinois.
Newsome’s family boasts three generations of Bantams. His late father-in-law, Grosvenor “Rick” Richardson graduated in 1960; his wife, Benagh Richardson Newsome, graduated in 1995; and daughter Addison Newsome graduated in 2022. He and his family reside in Winnetka, Illinois, and Vero Beach, Florida.
Joanna Jeanne Scott ’82
Joanna Scott ’82, H’09 is the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester. She has authored 13 works of fiction, and her accolades include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Scott’s novel, The Manikin, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and her stories have been selected for Pushcart Prize anthologies and Best American Short Stories. Her most recent books are a novel, Careers for Women, and a collection of stories, Excuse Me While I Disappear. A book of interviews and profiles, Conversations with Joanna Scott, was published by University Press of Mississippi.
Scott earned a B.A. in English from Trinity and an M.A. from Brown University. She lives in Stonington, Connecticut, and Rochester, New York, and has two daughters, Kathryn (married to Marc DiBenedetto ’13) and Alice. She met her late husband, the poet and literary critic James Longenbach ’81, while studying abroad at Trinity’s Rome Campus.
