Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo

An Roanoke College alumna of 1978, Cassullo has spent most of her adult life working in the contemporary world via her involvement with the Whitney Museum of American Art, Creative Time, an opportunity she says she wants to put back into her alma mater. Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo was born in Oyster Bay, New York, and raised in Texas. After her graduation from Fort Worth Country Day School, she entered Roanoke College where she majored in English, Elementary Education and Fine Arts. Cassullo received her Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree from Roanoke and her teaching certificate from the State of Virginia in 1978. She continued her education at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, completing course work for a master's of fine arts degree in 1983. In 1983, Cassullo was awarded a Helena Rubinstein Fellowship in Museum Studies at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. After her experience at the Whitney, Cassullo served as a gallery assistant at the Washburn Gallery in New York. In 1985, she became the youngest member ever elected to the Whitney's board of trustees, a position that she holds today. She has served as a special editorial consultant and prop stylist for numerous books and magazines that focus on the decorative arts. Cassullo is founder, president and director of the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, Inc., a private philanthropic foundation named in honor of her mother who was her role model.of Fine Arts degree posthumously in May 1985. For her many philanthropic activities, Cassullo was awarded the Aperture Foundation Award for Philanthropy in 2007. In addition to serving on the board of the Whitney, she serves on the boards of Creative Time, HELP USA Inc. (Housing Enterprises for the Less Privileged), and the New York City Police Foundation. She is also a council member of Rockefeller University in New York City. She has served on the boards of Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York; the Phoenix House, Inc. in New York; the Brooklyn Academy of Music; the Children's Advocacy Center of Manhattan; and RxArt, Inc. Cassullo is a member of the Roanoke College board of trustees, a Lifetime Distinguished Associate and is an active member of the alumni association. She is a past member of the President's Advisory Board. In 2001, Cassullo established the Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo Endowed Scholarship at Roanoke, and in 2004, Cassullo established a new professorship in art history