May 12, 2006

Academic Senate elects Verdini as new president

By Judith Smith

William (Bill) Verdini, an associate professor of Supply Chain Management in the W. P. Carey School of Business, has been elected presidentelect of the Academic Senate, and Anne Kopta, an associate professor of voice in the Herberger College of Music, has been re-elected secretary.

Verdini joined the faculty of ASU's College of Business in 1976 as an assistant professor in the Department of Quantitative Systems. He has played a number of roles at ASU and has a long list of community service activities, including serving on the board of trustees of All Saints' Episcopal Day School and the Flinn Scholars selection committee.

Verdini earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and began his career as a process control and development engineer for Firestone Plantations Co. in Liberia, West Africa.

He received his MBA in economics and a doctoral degree in decision sciences from Kent State University after a brief career as a chemical engineer.

Verdini has held several positions in the College of Extended Education, serving as interim dean from 2004 – 2005. He also was the founding director of the Center for the Advancement of Small Business and the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Program.

He also is an affiliated faculty member in the Center for Nonprofit Leadership & Management in the College of Public Programs, and in the School of Health Management and Policy.

Verdini's list of university service is long and varied, including serving as chair of the Intellectual Property Committee, member of the Institutional Review Board, University Club advisory board, chair of the Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence advisory board and member of the ASU at the Polytechnic campus fire service advisory board.

Those activities, Verdini says, “have given me a broad understanding of the interdisciplinary nature and the operations of the university. As president- elect, I am looking forward to working with Duane Roen to advance his agenda for the Academic Senate, and to learning more about the Arizona Faculties Council and the senates on all of ASU's campuses.”

Kopta, who has taught at ASU since 1999, has performed on Broadway and in numerous opera houses, and has taught at major universities and summer music schools in the United States and abroad.

As a principal artist singing under the stage name of Anne Elgar, she regularly appeared with the New York City Opera and the opera companies of San Francisco, San Diego, Houston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Wichita, Kan.

Her credits include Violetta in “La Traviata,” Gilda in “Rigoletto,” Mimi in “La Boheme,” Sophie in “Der Rosenkavalier,” Susanna in “The Marriage of Figaro,” Blonde in “The Abduction” from the “Seraglio,” Pamina in “The Magic Flute,” Rosina in “Barber of Seville,” Baby Doe in “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” Abigail in “The Crucible,” and Sister Blanche in “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” among many others.

She created the role of Margaret in the world premier of “Lizzie Borden” by Jack Beeson, a work commissioned by the New York City Opera.

Kopta has been a frequent soloist with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Orchestra of Mexico City and the Orchestra of The Hague, Holland.

Her master classes at Mexico 's National Conservatory of Music have become an annual event.

Smith, with Media Relations, can be reached at (480) 965-4821 or (jps@asu.edu).