New Alumni-Elected Trustees Join the Board

Alumni voters have chosen three alumni-elected trustees, who will begin to serve on the board, effective July 1. The new trustee members are Dr. Judith Absalon ’90, Julie Coffman ’88, and Jenina Nuñez ’04.

Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees is unusual in that one-quarter of the board is elected by their fellow alumni, including graduating seniors. Nearly 4,000 alumni voted this year. Each of the new trustees will join a 36-member board and serve a three-year term. They are responsible for ensuring the University fulfills its mission, sustains its values, and appropriately balances its obligations to current and future generations.

When Judith Absalon, who majored in math, looked back on her time at Wesleyan, she described an environment that allowed her to explore and express herself freely. “It provided the freedom to push boundaries, feel like you can ask anything, [and] provided a safe space that allowed me to be a little bit fearless,” she said. While she has tempered that instinct a bit as a physician, clinical researcher, and pharmaceutical executive, “I still carry the courage to speak up about things that I'm passionate about,” she said. “And I think a lot of that came from Wes.”

As a board member, Absalon will lend her voice to maintaining the University’s competitive edge and profile as a top institution. She feels the sheer number of high-achieving alumni alone speaks the institution’s strengths. “At Wesleyan you get a combination of academic rigor in an environment that allows you to think differently or take a different approach. That environment produces people who are solidly educated, who go on to do great things,” she said. “Everyone should know about Wesleyan.”

During her three-year tenure, Absalon would like to draw from her corporate experience at the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, PLC, and bring long-term, strategic thinking to shaping the University’s future at a time of transition. “We have to think about growing the endowment and putting the university in a position that whatever the external climate, we can ensure that Wesleyan can continue to be Wesleyan,” she said.

Coffman, who double majored in math and economics and most recently served on the Athletic Advisory Council for the last few years, recalled how Wesleyan shaped her intellectual growth. “I was surrounded by people that had passionate viewpoints on a variety of topics and usually had information, data, [and] stories to back those up,” she said. “Wesleyan was a place that taught me how to reason, how to think, and how to be prepared for an argument, because people around me were going to be prepared with their points of view.”

She wants to use her time as trustee to continue to foster that kind of open dialogue and debate on campus. “I think that liberal arts education and higher education more broadly is at a really important crossroads right now,” she said. “This is a moment where I think our institutions need as much open-minded support and leadership as possible to ensure we can steward them in a way that they are still relevant and accessible.”

An example of that relevance is artificial intelligence (AI), a topic she explored as senior partner and chief diversity officer at Bain & Company, Inc., where she chaired a council on responsible use of AI. “We've thought a lot about how does this become an enabler, but not a replacement for the team brainstorm process, for the way that we engage with our clients, for the way that we problem solve together, and not just assume that Claude or your favorite co-pilot will do the thinking for you,” she said. Coffman would like to bring those professional insights to the University so AI augments but does not replace skill development.

Jenina Nuñez ’04, who majored in sociology at Wesleyan, found her first job through a connection at Wesleyan. Now, she aims to bring her two decades of experience in strategic communications at some of the world’s high-profile organizations to the board, including her current position as chief of staff at the pharmaceutical company AbbVie. She was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow at Wes and in this role, she hopes to contribute to decisions on financial aid and university budgeting.

“I've always had a lot of heart for financial aid and making sure that resources reach as many students as possible can get the strongest and most meaningful experience,” Nuñez said.

Nuñez was her class president while on campus and has been involved in the Wesleyan alumni community since she graduated, including work as class secretary and on her reunion committee. She said her time at Wesleyan broadened her horizons, after growing up in a tight-knit neighborhood in New York City, and she learned to navigate different social settings. “It was life changing to be in a space in which I was surrounded by so many amazing, dynamic, smart people, and at the same time discover who I could be,” she said.

Mike Mavredakis contributed to this article.