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UNCG Home > School of Health & Human Sciences

Q&A with New Alumni Affairs Director

New alumni affairs director Rebecca "Becci" Menghini is enjoying her first winter at UNCG. Responsible for fulfilling UNCG's Alumni Association mission-connecting and engaging alumni with one another and the University-she brings seven years of experience in alumni relations from The University of Wisconsin at Madison. Recently, Connections Editor Emily-Sarah Lineback asked Becci about her new job and her goals for alumni relations at UNCG.

Emily-Sarah: You're starting your first winter at UNCG. How is it going so far?

Becci: So far, so good. The hospitality extended to me has been just wonderful and I'm learning so much. The students, staff and alumni of UNCG are clearly eager to be more connected and engaged, so I'm putting the building blocks in place to make that both easy to do and rewarding for everyone when it happens.

E-S: What are your main "duties"/responsibilities in your role as alumni director?

B: The mission of the Alumni Association is to connect and engage alumni with one another and the University. My job then, is to make that happen. I'm working on a three-part plan. First, I'm tending to our internal structure-spending time filling our vacant staff positions, building some internal systems to make us more efficient, and working to make our processes more team-driven and collaborative. My second priority is to grow our campus presence, so our entire staff is working to grow our campus networks and understand better the resources we have available to us right here on campus. I think to be effective, we need to know as much about the campus as the people who work in the information booth, so we're working to grow our knowledge on that front. My third priority then, is our external outreach to alumni in the form of events and communications. I could easily start with this one, as it is arguably the easiest to put in place, but I think really that if we devote some time to the first two priorities, the rewards we'll reap in this arena will be that much greater. Certainly, the Alumni Association will continue with our programming and events in the interim, I'm just hoping that as we move forward, we'll be better able to target alumni interest, match volunteers with projects, and generate deeper and longer-lasting relationships with the University.

E-S: You believe in connecting alumni with students so that students understand their future role as alumni. What are a couple of ways that you plan on doing that?

B: I think events like the recent Schmooza Palooza are a great start, and anytime we can connect students with alumni, we should. It is important that students see the Alumni Association as relevant to them while they're students so that they'll know it as a connection when they graduate. That means we need to be present as part of their student experience. Connecting scholarship winners with donors, prospects with alumni in their area, and students with career mentors seem like easy ways to begin this, though we'll also work with our campus partners to explore other options. Students on campus are inherently part of a family that is nearly 100,000 strong, and they ought to know that, understand how that can be helpful, and commit themselves to being a part of it.

E-S: What would you tell HES alumni in terms of their importance to UNCG and its future? What ways would you like to see them more involved?

B: The academic units are an integral part of alumni relations, as we know that fewer and fewer graduates relate to a class year (like 1984 or 2006) in the way the alumni before them did. Instead, they view their collegiate experience as a series of communities and hope to engage through those...whether they be HES at large, Interior Architecture or Child Development at the more departmental level, or groups, academic or social, like the student newspaper or a departmental honor society. We need to track student involvement and engagement on both the academic and student involvement sides and then work to connect and engage graduates through those groups.

HES has always done, and continues to do a wonderful job of educating students in a wide array of disciplines and fields. HES graduates are living, working and making an impact in every corner of the state and beyond...and we want all of them to be more connected to and engaged with UNCG today. We're working to launch an online community that will make being engaged with UNCG even easier (watch for it in the coming year) and also growing opportunities for career networking and volunteer involvement. Likewise, a portion of all Alumni Association memberships purchased by HES graduates is returned to Dean Sims for her use in alumni programs. Finally, contributions to the Students First campaign can support students in HES at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Want to learn more about how you can become more involved with the Alumni Association? E-mail Becci Menghini or visit the Alumni Associtation.

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