In this episode of Alum-Less, we chat with special guest Patrick Auerbach, Associate Senior Vice President for Alumni Relations at the University of Southern California. Although our conversation was be wide-ranging, we discussed with Patrick the challenges of developing a more inclusive, accessible approach to engaging alumni, including reimagining regional engagement.

Happy 2023 Alum-Less Listeners! We are back this week with special guest Sue Cunningham, President & CEO of CASE. We're psyched to start the New Year with a bang and a convo with a true global leader in advancement. We explore with Sue many of the themes from her new book, "Global Exchange: Dialogues to Advance Education." In particular, we'll focus our conversation on how alumni engagement is becoming enmeshed with marketing and communications, and how the CASE Alumni Engagement Metrics have been a game-changer for the profession. This week we're making our full, 1-hour conversation with Sue available on both LinkedIn Live and on the podcast.

On this edition of Alum-Less, Ryan and Chris connect with Tricia Riveire Stumpf, CEO of the Indiana University Alumni Association. Tricia shares how her team at the IUAA have worked to strengthen their connectivity with the Indiana University Foundation to create a more integrated advancement model over the last year. In particular, the IUAA and IUF have worked to bring together marketing resources in a shared capacity. 

On this episode of Alum-Less, Chris and Ryan chat with Matthew Lambert, Vice President for University Advancement, about William & Mary's recent decision to realign career services underneath advancement. They discuss with Matthew how this alignment reflects a crucial element to increasing alumni participation in the future.

This week's Alum-Less - Episode 13 is all about goal setting. Chris and Ryan chat with Duane Wiles, Chief Alumni Officer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. On the episode, Duane shares his approach to goal setting for across their engagement programs and initiatives. In addition, Duane shares more about the new UT Strategic Vision for the whole UT System and what it means for alumni engagement. Finally, hear more about how the recent success of the University of Tennessee football program has accelerated engagement and provided new opportunities to engage alumni around athletics. 

On this episode of Alum-Less, Chris and Ryan chat with Julie Sina, Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni Affairs at UCLA. They discuss the new strategic plan for campus-wide alumni engagement at UCLA, and how it's built around a life stage model.

In this edition of Alum-Less, Chris and Ryan explore strategies for working with alumni volunteers with Teresa Trombetta, Assistant Vice President for Alumni and Constituent Engagement at Carnegie Mellon University. Specifically, we discuss the challenges of working with alumni boards within an integrated advancement model. 

On the show, we explore how CMU is thinking about building its regional network program post-COVID, and Teresa shares more about her focus on building a volunteer pipeline. 

On this episode of Alum-Less, Chris and Ryan discuss campaign readiness with Bonnie Devlin and Karin George, co-owners and Managing Principals of Washburn & McGoldrick LLC, and how engagement should be factored into the plans and goals. 

This week on Alum-Less, Chris and Ryan interview Nancy Merritt, Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations at the University of Pittsburgh. Nancy shares insights into her work modernizing some of the components of on-campus traditions at Pitt and the thought process that went into reshaping these signature programs. 

This week our featured guest on Alum-Less is Jennifer Cunningham, AVP of Alumni Relations at Lehigh University — Chris's alma mater! We discuss alumni engagement metrics, Maria Gallo's book The Alumni Way, and how to go about guiding alumni volunteers so they have impactful and positive experiences on our boards.