2012 Board Members
Kenny Dalsheimer
President
Kenny Dalsheimer is an award winning filmmaker, video producer and media educator. He founded The Groove Productions in Durham, North Carolina in 1996. His films, A Weaverly Path (2011), A New Kind of Listening (2009), Bending Space (2007), Shine On (2000), and Go Fast, Turn Left (1998), have screened at US and international film festivals, aired on PBS stations around the southeast, and screened in communities across North Carolina through the NC Humanities Council's Road Scholars Program. Since 2001, Dalsheimer has worked as an arts educator with the Durham Arts Council and taught workshops at alternative schools and juvenile justice programs. He also produces documentary-style videos for non-profits and other organizations. He received his M.A. in Anthropology from Duke University and taught at Carolina Friends School for ten years.
Allegra Jordan
Vice President
Allegra Jordan grew up in Selma, Alabama not far from the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The blood sport of racial politics was softened by the generosity of her public school teachers, several of whom played important roles in the Civil Rights movement. They taught her that while there is the murderous in life, there can also be the marvelous. Allegra's vocation is to live in this tension, where she helps leaders and their teams build "beloved communities." Today she works with senior international leaders in innovation, entrepreneurship and marketing through a non-traditional corporation, Innovation Abbey. Recent projects include producing the TEDxFranklinSt conference; fostering an innovation culture in 10 Asia-Pacific country offices of a large public health and development NGO; and working with the Archbishop of South Sudan to build community health infrastructure. Previously Allegra led marketing efforts at USATODAY.com which grew from 10,000 people a month to 8+million visitors; served in strategic posts at UT-Austin and Duke; and published 12 business cases at Harvard Business School. Allegra was named a top executive under 40 in Austin, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama; a Rising Star by Time Magazine, and is an honors graduate of Harvard Business School.
Eric Boggs
Treasurer
Eric Boggs founded Argyle in 2009 because he saw a huge vacuum in helping marketers drive real results from social media. He spends every day pushing Argyle to achieve this mission. Prior to starting Argyle with Adam, Eric was employee #1 and part of the leadership team at Bronto Software, an email marketing automation software provider. At Bronto, Eric lead sales, marketing, and product efforts that laid the foundations for Bronto's growth from 3-person start-up to 100-employee powerhouse. Eric has a BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he was a Dean's Fellow. Fun Fact: Eric spends his free time brainwashing his infant son Thomas to love Carolina basketball and heavy metal music just like his dad.
Bonnie Gordon
Secretary
Bonnie Gordon is a senior program director at MDC and leads the Partners for Postsecondary Success project, a Gates-funded multi-site demonstration to accelerate postsecondary credential completion through sustainable community partnerships. Gordon previously led MDC's knowledge development, communications, and policy liaison work on the Achieving the Dream initiative. Prior to joining MDC, she was the College Prep program officer at the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, where she designed a college-school partnership program to improve academic achievement for underserved students and helped lead the development of the College Ready New England P-16 Alliance, a regional policy and program collaboration in support of college access and success for underserved students. She is a 20-year veteran of higher education administration with extensive experience with state and national education associations. Gordon has provided independent consulting services to both corporate and nonprofit clients for policy analysis and program support in education, management, board development, human resources, marketing, public relations, and fundraising. She has served as a member of the American Council on Education Commission on Adult Learning and Education Credentials, the board of visitors of Air University (United States Air Force), and as a program evaluator for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. In addition, she has served on the national Pathways to College Network Executive Committee and the Fenway High School Board of Directors. Gordon is currently a member of the Executive Service Corps of the Greater Triangle Board of Directors.
Rebecca Cerese is an award winning filmmaker who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in Communications and English. She has worked for Video Dialog, Inc. for over 12 years before starting her own company, Shelter from the Storm Productions. Her documentaries include, February One – The Story of the Greensboro Four, Change Comes Knocking – The Story of the North Carolina Fund and Durham – A Self Portrait. Recent projects include Landscapes of the Heart – The Elizabeth Spencer Story and a television series entitled, Exotic Pet Vet. Cerese currently serves as the Vice President of the Peoples Channel, the public access station in Chapel Hill and Durham, and has served on the board of the North Carolina ACLU.
Dr. Steven Channing brings a wide range of experiences as an historian, author, and Emmy Award winning filmmaker. Over the past two decades his documentaries have explored many American stories, from The Lost Colony to February One, The Story of the Greensboro Four. His Durham: A Self-Portrait was broadcast on Fox50, while Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the North Carolina Fund, and Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina have recently been broadcast on PBS in North Carolina.
Elisabeth Haviland James is a producer, director and editor based in Durham, North Carolina, where her company, Thornapple Films, is headquartered. James was the Producer and Editor of The Loving Story (airs on HBO in early 2012), and was a consulting producer to the narrative feature Oka! Amerikee. Other recent credits include Producer of The Good Fight and Co-Producer of The Lord God Bird – both directed by George Butler. She served as Director of Photography and Editor on Brothers in Arms, featuring Senator John Kerry, during the 2004 election. She is a graduate of the M.A. Program in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University, where she produced and directed four award-winning short documentaries, including Precipice, a national finalist for the 2002 Academy Award in the Student Documentary category. Her thesis film, Net Loss, was awarded the Nicholas Roosevelt Award for Environmental Journalism. James' media clients include Augusta Films, White Mountain Films, Roland Films, National Geographic, PBS and MTV.
Titus Brooks Heagins is a documentary and fine art photographer. His work explores the lives of people often as the "Other." His projects have taken him to Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, and throughout the Caribbean, where he has worked extensively in Cuba and Haiti. His photography is included in the collections of several museums, including the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Heagins holds an AB from Duke University and an MFA from the University of Michigan.
Cynthia Hill is a North Carolina-based filmmaker whose works include the feature-length documentaries, Tobacco Money Feeds My Family and The Guestworker, as well as various films documenting southern life and culture. In 2011, Hill completed an 18 part multi-media project on domestic violence called Survivor to Survivor, and continued post production work on the feature-length documentary Private Violence. A native of Pink Hill, NC, Hill began her production career as an editor at GLC Productions, a New York City post-production facility whose clients included MTV, PBS, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, and many others.
Scott Misner is an experienced communicator and instructor. He produced a weekly television news-variety show and is a graduate from Purdue University and the University of North Carolina. Scott launched a public relations firm in 2001 and works with statewide and national media in the court of public opinion. He serves as chief strategist for this idea factory that helps North Carolina organizations find their creative voice. Fifteen years of broad experience enables him to tell good stories and know how to participate as a brand with consumers.
Alan B. Teasley retired in 2006 after working for 31 years in the Durham Public Schools in a variety of roles--as a high school English and drama teacher and as central office coordinator of secondary English, Social Studies, and Foreign Languages. He currently holds an adjunct faculty appointment in Duke University's Master of Arts in Teaching Program and Secondary Teacher Preparation Program, where he teaches courses in effective teaching strategies, methods of teaching English, and world literature. He holds BA, MAT, and PhD degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill. Since 2003, Alan has volunteered as a member of the selection committee of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, where he estimates he has seen well over a thousand documentaries. He also serves on the boards of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke and the Friends of the Durham County Library. His articles on using film in the classroom have appeared in English Journal, The Iowa English Bulletin, Media and Methods, Telemedium, and The ALAN Revie.*. With Ann Wilder, he is the co-author of Reel Conversations: Reading Films with Young Adults (Heinemann Boynton/Cook, 1997), a book for middle and high school English teachers. With various colleagues, he has presented over twenty workshops on using media in the classroom at conferences hosted by such organizations as the National Council of Teachers of English, the North Carolina English Teachers Association, and the Annenberg School for Communication.
Judy Van Wyk is an award winning former television producer. She produced numerous hour-long programs for the Discovery Network, including Genetic Promises, which received the prestigious 2002 Freddy Award for documentaries dealing with clinical and basic science. Recent projects include a biography of Wendell H. Murphy, a controversial figure who pioneered industrial swine production in North Carolina, and a short film about an Iraqi journalist forced to flee Baghdad during the height of the Iraq War. Van Wyk is chair of SDF's New Projects Committee.