After a 15-year hiatus I am back working in higher education. Although many things have changed, much has stayed the same. And it feels like coming home.
I spent my twenties working as a fundraiser for a series of universities, including my own alma mater, Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Southwestern is a small liberal arts college, nestled in the suburbs of Austin and much-beloved by its alumni.
Image credit: Southwestern University
A cornerstone of Southwestern’s alumni relations and fundraising program was (and continues to be) Homecoming Weekend.
Homecoming Weekend has taken many iterations over the years but is always marked by reunions, fancy dinners, and random events like the year the chair of the Board of Trustees had a live steer visit campus to welcome a “Yankee” donor. (This is Texas, mind you.)
Working at Southwestern, I selfishly looked forward to Homecoming as a time to get paid to party and hang out with many of my old friends. It was a long weekend and we were always exhausted at the end, but I loved it. When I left Southwestern it was the thing I missed most of all.
Fast forward many years later. I left higher ed, took a series of writing and communications jobs at small nonprofits (all of which I loved), had three kids, and built a life in San Francisco. Then I decided that I missed the energy of being on campus and I wanted to return to higher education. I found the perfect fit in my current job at the University of San Francisco.
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Jesuit university with a beautiful historic campus, hidden in plain sight in the middle of San Francisco. Like Southwestern, it has a rich history, rigorous environment, and loyal alumni base.
Although I am still in the honeymoon phase, my new position at USF feels a bit like coming home. Granted, the urban location is in quite the contrast to Southwestern’s country setting. But the energy here is warm, welcoming, and values-centric. It just feels right, like the perfect place and time to reenter the university environment.
My team is hardworking, smart, and fun. We are already making plans and building strategies to help the university achieve fundraising goals and help even more students. We even get to do the marketing and communications for USF’s own version of Homecoming Weekend.