THE CLASSES
Marriages 1 Jennifer Fish ’10 to Matthew Bloom, Sept. 14, 2018. 2 Hayden Staley ’12 to Joshua Menendez ’12, Oct. 13, 2018. 3 Taylor GabrieleGoodwin ’14 to Christopher Mills, Aug. 2018.
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4 Christina Canalizo ’16 to Christian Decker ’15, Aug. 4, 2018. 5 Raisa Santiesteban ’16 to Christopher MacLeod ’16, Nov. 4, 2018
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Success by the Numbers Darleen Opfer ’89 made her way to Stetson as a firstgeneration college student all the way from Spruce Creek High School, about 23 miles from campus. The short trip has taken her a long way. Opfer arrived hoping to become a teacher in special education. She remembers taking small classes, getting to know the faculty, gaining valuable classroom experience and, ultimately, receiving academic-adviser encouragement that led her to a doctorate at the University of Virginia in education policy studies. Today, Opfer has gone from special-education teacher and researcher to become a main cog in decisions about global education policy. All at seemingly lightning speed. From 2005 to 2011, she served as director of research and a senior lecturer in research methods and school improvement at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education in England. From there, she landed at the RAND Corp., where she was director of RAND Education from 2011 to 2018. Additionally, through the years Opfer served as an adviser to the National Council of Educational Research and Training in India, and as a consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development in South Africa, among others.
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Now, with a recent promotion, Opfer is vice president and director of RAND Education and Labor while also holding RAND’s Distinguished Chair in Education Policy. By virtue of its research, RAND has a global reputation for developing solutions to public-policy challenges — and Opfer sits squarely at the head. Her focus is on both education and employment — more specifically, helping people ascend from lower socioeconomic rungs to the middle class. To move ahead, just like she did. “What we’re trying to do is figure out how we get the education system to prepare people for jobs of the future, so that people can advance. … And I want to make it not be a matter of luck,” asserted Opfer, adding that she feels especially lucky herself to have traveled this far. Darleen Opfer ’89, holder of RAND's — Michael Candelaria Distinguished Chair in Education Policy
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STETSON | Spring 2019