Coming soon: An ambitious alumnae engagement initiative

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]aybe you’ve noticed a theme as you’ve read the alumnae magazine, emails, and other communications from Hollins over the past year: the critical importance of engaging alumnae more fully in the current and future life of Hollins.

President Gray wrote an essay in the summer 2012 issue of Hollins stressing alumnae engagement as one of the keys to the success of the university’s strategic plan. We’ve been asking you with greater urgency to refer prospective students, and we’ve been strengthening the presence of alumnae in Hollins’ ambitious internship and career preparation program.

[threecol_two]Now we’re ready to turn these early expressions of our wish to reengage alumnae into something more formal. We will soon launch a many-pronged formal initiative—with alumnae engagement at the heart of it. The Alumnae Board and Hollins’ Board of Trustees have already endorsed the initiative, to be ably led by Judy Lambeth ’73.

Unlike a typical fundraising campaign, there is a way each alumna can be involved. We hope to engage all alumnae to:

• Refer and recruit prospective students
• Provide internships, career mentoring, and other services to prepare students for careers and life after Hollins
• Create more opportunities for alumnae to engage with each other
• Support the Hollins Fund, student scholarships, and other priorities

This multifaceted and multiyear initiative will honor and advance the remarkable legacy of women who attended Hollins. It will serve and support our current students and also launch them into a lifetime of active engagement with their alma mater. It will help us attract increased numbers of qualified women who want to pursue a Hollins education and join the Hollins network.

We are grateful to those alumnae and friends who helped us exceed our goals during the $162 million “Campaign for Women Who Are Going Places.” We’re now looking ahead to a new kind of initiative, one that involves all alumnae on many levels, to move us forward through new challenges.

To start off this effort, we challenge our alumnae and friends to help us accomplish the following goals this year:

• Refer 150 prospective students to the office of admission this year (you’ll find the referral form at www.hollins.edu/refer)
•  Offer an internship, host a student intern during January Term, or mentor a student interested in your profession (contact Ashley Glenn, director of the Career Center, at 540-362-6938 or cdc@hollins.edu)
•  Share your ideas for alumnae engagement with Anna Moncure ’07 (moncurea@hollins.edu), associate director of alumnae engagement, attend events in your area, or volunteer to become a class fund chair (you’ll find more at www.hollins.edu/alumnae/volunteer)
• Help us reach our $3.3 million Hollins Fund goal (visit www.hollins.edu/giving and click on “Hollins Fund”)

We would like to draw upon the energy, enthusiasm, and love for Hollins we observed in June during the Hollins Rocks! campaign and that we see every year at reunion, when alumnae break records in their efforts to express their devotion to their alma mater. They leave campus charged with the electric Hollins spirit. We would like to channel that excitement—and find additional ways to renew it—to benefit Hollins immediately and to help us secure Hollins’ place among the nation’s finest national liberal arts institutions for years to come. We invite you to join us.

[/threecol_two][threecol_one_last]Summer Yarbrough ’08 won the Outstanding Admission Ambassador Award, newly created by the admission office to honor sustained commitment to the alumnae admission volunteer effort. Yarbrough represented Hollins at back-to-back college fairs in the Plano, Texas, school district in which she works.

Current and past presidents of the Alumnae Board: Judy Ball Morrill ’84 and Frances Leitner ’73. The Alumnae Board will play a critical role in the upcoming engagement initiative.

Katherine Burke ’14 spent January 2013 at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Press in an internship sponsored by Joanna Ruth Harris Marsland ’91.[/threecol_one_last]