AAGC Nominating Committee

Kim Van Newkirk Shaffir ’83, P ’15

Shaffir currently serves as Vice President on the AAGC Board of Directors and as facilitator of this committee. A communications major, Shaffir began working during her senior year at Baltimore’s WMAR-TV, where she operated a studio camera for local news programs. Later that year, she made the move from local news to the network, beginning her now 37 year career in the Washington Bureau of CBS News. As an editor, Shaffir has covered every major beat in Washington: the Capitol, the Pentagon and the White House. For six and a half years, Shaffir worked primarily for the CBS program, Face the Nation, as a producer/editor. In 2013, she and her team received an Emmy for their broadcast about the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In early 2018, Shaffir was promoted to Digital Media Operations Manager, overseeing and managing the bureau’s transition to an all digital editing system.  Shaffir served as her class’s Quarterly representative for twenty years and has also been a member of the AAGC nominating committee. When not covering the news or volunteering for Goucher, Shaffir designs and sells knitting patterns in her spare time. She lives in Annapolis with her husband Greg; her daughter, Kira, graduated Goucher in 2015.

Sam Anderson ’21

Anderson graduated from Goucher in 2021 with a B.A. in Political Science. While at Goucher, he was an active presence in student leadership, specifically, serving almost two years as president of the Goucher Student Government. Anderson also served as a first-year mentor, leading first-year students through orientation and teaching a course on topics important to the success of incoming students. In addition to these formal roles, Anderson served as an advocate for students working alongside student-organizing groups and participated in student activism around issues of accessibility, racial equity, and more. Anderson is currently an M.A. student in Higher Education with a concentration in Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan, on track to graduate in December 2022. He works as program assistant for the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center and as an intern for the Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research at Michigan.

Royal Banks ’20

Royal graduated from Goucher in 2020 with a degree in History and Secondary Education. During her time at Goucher, she served in numerous roles. She was the co-founder of Black Seed & Goucher's History Club, she also worked as an administrative assistant at GPEP.  After Goucher, she did a year in Americorp at Match High School located in Boston, MA. She is now a social studies teacher at a local Baltimore City School. Royal loves teaching history & other fun content to her students. In her downtime, she enjoys dance, baking, music, traveling, and engaging in prison reform as much as possible. 

Karen Cohen Bloom ’91

Bloom was an Applied Mathematics major and dancer at Goucher. After graduation, she attended the University of Cincinnati to earn a teacher certification and began teaching both middle school and high school math. She worked in both public and private schools, as well as urban and rural settings over the course of her 17 years of teaching. She is currently a middle school math teacher at Piedmont Middle School in Piedmont, CA, where she also serves as one of the coordinators of the school's No Place for Hate initiative, is one of the advisors to the students' Safe Space Club, is a family group leader for the school's Safe School Ambassadors and is a member of the Gender Leadership Team. Bloom is a member of the executive board of Piedmont Anti-racism and Diversity Committee and volunteers for the education committee of Piedmont's Racial Equity Campaign. She is on both the chapter and regional boards of Hadassah, as well as co-chair of the National Hadassah Educators Council which is in formation and is an active member of the Youth and Families Committee of the SURJ Bay Area. Bloom recently completed a Master of Arts in Education at Humphreys University. She lives in Oakland, CA with her husband, Rabbi Mark Bloom, and has one son in college and one who graduated in 2022.

Andrew Deal ’14

Deal is an Associate Director of Development at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania where he fundraises to support physician research, clinical care, and patient support funds for the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Penn Transplant Institute, amongst other priorities. In his spare time, he is a wedding photographer and enjoys competing in Spartan Races and doing Crossfit. Coming to Goucher from the great state of Maine, he studied Political Science and Business Management. He proudly served as an Orientation Committee Member, a Goucher Vagabond, At-Large Student Representative, Treasurer for the Class of 2014, and co-chaired Gophers for Goucher, the volunteer student philanthropic committee. Above all, he made the Goucher community smoothies and mozzarella sticks during his time as a manager at the Gopher Hole.

Celena Dyal ’17

Dyal graduated from Goucher in 2017 with a degree in Chemistry. During her time at Goucher she served on the Judicial Board, Smoke Free Campus Initiative, learned German, and was a dedicated student worker in the box office. After graduating from Goucher, Dyal completed a year of service as an AmeriCorps member with City Year Los Angeles serving as a tutor and mentor at one of the most at-need high schools in Los Angeles. Dyal is currently a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, where she is a staff editor on the Journal of Business and Technology Law, a member of the Alternate Dispute Resolution team, and has served as the President of the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association.

Gloria Kantor ’04

After graduating in 2004, Kantor has used her Management degree and Communications minor crafting experiences in radio promotions, helping to build a wine and liquor distribution business, and currently works for the Association for Corporate Growth. In her time at Goucher, you could find her in the SRC working with the women's basketball team or as a student trainer. She also held numerous leadership positions in clubs, helping to create the programming board, and SGA. Gloria currently lives in her hometown of Atlanta, where you can find her out at a concert, running, or enjoying all that the city has to offer.

John Nobriga ‘19

Nobriga graduated in 2019 from Goucher with a Business Administration Major and double minors in Music and Theatre. During his time, he was involved in many aspects of Goucher via student leadership roles; Student Government, Student Affairs and Activities, Residential Life, and Athletics. After graduation, Nobriga continues his work helping others by joining a Customer Care team at a tech firm in his hometown in the Bay Area working on escalations and training programs for new employees.

Laura Taylor '94

Laura Taylor graduated from Goucher in 1994 with Bachelors’ degrees in Economics and Russian. After graduation, she settled in Chicago, Illinois where for several years she worked as an investigator at the Chicago Board of Trade’s Office of Investigations and Audits. She went on to earn a Master’s degree and PhD in Economics and joined the faculty at Willamette University in 2005. In addition to her academic appointment, she currently serves as the Associate Provost for Academic Finance at Willamette. In this position, she advises the Provost, the Deans of the Colleges at Willamette, and the leadership of other academic and administrative units on campus, in strategic budgeting and resource planning. Laura maintains an active forensic economics consulting practice and also serves as a pro bono economic consultant for the Trial Defense Services of the various branches of the U.S. military. Laura and her family reside in Portland, Oregon. She is Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of the French American International School in Portland, where her daughter is now a 4^th grader. 

Laura Zelley Van Riper ’89, P ’22

Laura graduated with a history degree and went to earn her Master of Arts in Teaching from Towson University in 1992. Her career has included teaching in Baltimore County Public Schools as a middle school social studies teacher and as a youth leader in her local community. After raising her children, Laura and her husband relocated to Atlanta, Georgia where Laura continues to be actively involved in social justice initiatives. She volunteers with local campaigns and works closely with organizations overseeing election reform in Fulton County. Laura is the proud mother of four grown children, including her youngest son, Steven, a 2022 Goucher graduate. She recently became a grandmother and enjoys spending time with her granddaughter.