Q
& A:
Cathy
Katz
Director
of Alumni Relations
"We
know there are no better recruiters than alumni who have had a successful
experience at Montclair State."
-Cathy Katz
Cathy Katz appreciates the value of tradition, but she also
recognizes the need for change. These are indispensable qualities for
the director of Alumni Relations at a university where alumni span more
than seven decades.
Improving existing programs and services for alumni is among Katz's top
priorities, but increasing the effectiveness of communication is at the
forefront. She's begun right on campus where, she says, alumni are nurtured
as students. She's been spending her first few months talking to representatives
of the colleges and schools to evaluate what is going well and what can
be improved.
She also doesn't want to overlook other important roles alumni can play,
such as giving back to the University as mentors, job networking, and
other volunteer opportunities.
The Alumni Relations director talks here about some of her goals and how
working together will benefit alumni and the University.
Q. How do you view the University's
relationship with alumni?
A. After we became a comprehensive
university and the graduating classes increased in size, a different kind
of relationship that alumni have with each other and with the University
emerged, different from the days when Montclair State was a normal school
and teachers' college. For instance, Alumni Weekend, as I understand,
is popular with older alumni but it isn't a big draw for alumni from classes
since the 1970s. One of our challenges is to find programs we can enhance
or ways we can transform Alumni Weekend to be inclusive of a wider range
of alumni. Another goal is to communicate with alumni through electronic
means. We're going to improve our online community so it delivers services
in more appropriate ways. We also would like to begin a monthly e-newsletter.
Q. How
would an e-newsletter differ from Alumni Life?
A. Alumni
Life is our primary source of information, but a monthly e-newsletter
would be a timely complement to that. I'm learning, as I meet with various
deans and department chairs, that a lot of faculty are interested in communicating
with former students. An e-newsletter is a cost-effective way to get time-sensitive
information to 57,000 alumni.
Q. Is it possible, now that the
University has grown so large, to foster family relationships with alumni?
A. There are
probably relationships between alumni and their former teachers, and I
suspect allegiances are more within disciplines than within class years.
For instance, I found that the Department of Broadcasting keeps in close
contact with its alumni. In addition to social gatherings, the department
networks with its graduates for employment opportunities. I also learned
that the School of Business is interested in finding more ways to communicate
with its alums. That's a great place for networking opportunities.
Q. Tell us about some services
you would like to offer.
A. President [Susan A.] Cole presented
us with a list of benchmark universities so we can look at what some of
the best practice models in the country are offering. In addition, [Admissions
Director] Dennis Craig has taken the lead in a new Alumni Ambassadors
Program that we will institute this year. We're looking for alumni who
are interested in working with Admissions in getting the word out about
Montclair State. We know there are no better recruiters than alumni who
have had a successful experience at Montclair State.
Q. How will you maintain tradition
while moving forward?
A. We will continue traditions that
mean so much to alumni through the years, and we're looking for lost traditions
we can bring up to date. We're looking forward to the amphitheater renovation,
which is one of our primary projects. We're raising money because the
amphitheater was such a central location in the lives of alumni throughout
the history of the University, and we'd like to make it a central point
again.
Q. How do the colleges and schools
fit into your plans?
A. The faculty and deans are interested
in learning more about their impact on their students. The deans I've
spoken with told me that they are charged with knowing how their programs
are going and one important way of finding out is by communicating with
alumni. This means we need better data and we need to find ways to better
communicate with alums so we can get and maintain that information. We
want every alum to know that his or her story is important.