Stepping up Student Recruiting

Alumni from the Chippewa Valley chapter invited future Wisconsin freshmen and their parents to a student send-off in July, where they closed the event by learning how to sing “Varsity.” Photo: Bill Hoepner

Admissions office ramps up partnership with alumni.

It takes a village to raise a UW-Madison student, and that philosophy is now reflected in a strengthened partnership between the Office of Admissions and the Wisconsin Alumni Association.

Under the direction of Adele Brumfield, the university’s new admissions director, the office will take a broader view and dedicate additional resources to alumni relations and student recruitment. Two new staff liaisons will work closely with WAA’s alumni chapters and hundreds of advocates and volunteers to reach prospective students and their families.

For years, alumni chapters in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Portland, and Boston have staffed college fairs and hosted private events to talk up the UW.

“Although alumni have always played a vital role in student recruitment, it’s been more of a shotgun approach,” says WAA vice president of programs and outreach Jeff Wendorf ’82, who served on the university search committee that recommended Brumfield.

Brumfield plans to vigorously pursue efforts to encourage a diverse and welcoming student body. In September, she’ll team up with WAA to visit her hometown of Milwaukee, where she’ll meet with alumni and community leaders, such as Tom Neubauer ’67, who are interested in helping students enroll at UW-Madison.

“As a volunteer in Mil-waukee’s YMCA mentoring programs, I welcome a coordinated approach to identifying students who are well suited for UW-Madison,” says Neubauer, “and by that, I mean academically qualified students who are also open to the university’s traditions of free inquiry and self-expression.”

Published in the Fall 2010 issue