On Sept. 26, the Brandeis Board of Trustees elected four new members, bringing the total Board to six officers, 33 trustees, five faculty representatives, three student representatives and nine trustees emeriti. The Board serves as “the final authority on all aspects of the university’s operations,” according to the University’s website. The Board of Trustees, in additon to other duties, is responsible for electing the University’s president and for holding the president accountable for all academic, administrative, financial, and other activities.

Fran Bermanzohn ’78, Bram Shapiro, Cynthia Berenson, and Jayne Beker P’99, P’04, P’15 have all now started their four-year terms on the board. Board members are eligible to serve for up to 12 consecutive years. 

Bermanzohn was the deputy general counsel of Goldman Sachs, where she was responsible for the trading, investment banking and merchant banking businesses, according to a Sept. 26 BrandeisNow article. After graduating from Brandeis, she received her law degree from Boston University School of Law. She also currently serves on the boards of trustees for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and for DreamYard, a New York organization dedicated to creating equity through the arts, according to their website.

Shapiro works as a corporate partner at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, P.C., a law firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Prior to joining the Boston office, Shapiro worked in New York City. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College and his law degree from Boston College. Shapiro is also currently a member of the Board of Overseers of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Berenson was already an active member of the Brandeis community before being elected to the Board. According to the same BrandeisNOW article, she “is a board member for the Women’s Studies Research Center, Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies Program and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism” and has also been a University Fellow since 2000. With her family members, Berenson has helped create programs like the Allen/Berenson Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Women’s Studies at Brandeis and the Cynthia L. and Theodore S. Berenson Chair of Fine Arts. She received her B.A. from Simmons College. 

Beker is a clinical psychologist and worked for 20 years at the Family Center at Bank Street College of Education, per the same article. In 1983, she founded the Beker Foundation with her husband. The foundation supports “organizations doing work that is creative, community-centered, and collaborative, both Jewish and secular,” according to the foundation’s website. Beker received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business Administration from New York University and her doctorate from Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology.