Serving Alumni Volunteers

Arlene Holmes and Melanie Drake ’92 are assistant directors of alumni relations — Holmes, for career development, connecting alumni with students who can benefit from their professional experience and perspectives; Drake, for admission, coordinating alumni volunteers who help connect prospective students with the College. 

“When we asked alumni for feedback during the strategic planning process, they were resounding in asking for more opportunities to provide professional development mentoring and advice, and in further outreach to prospective students during the admission process,” says Jayn Bailey Chaney ’05, director of alumni relations. “We didn’t have enough support in place for those activities. Now we have two full-time people who are devoted to being catalysts in those areas.” Both have hit the ground running. 

Holmes, formerly a career development office director at a small university, joined the College in April and already has coordinated a professional development workshop and networking event in Washington, D.C., attended by about 40 Grinnellians; is coordinating alumni-in-residence opportunities that will bring alumni to campus for two to four days to share their professional experiences; and developed and led the College’s first industry tour over fall break (see “Grinnell in Silicon Valley,” Page 29). Many more such activities are planned, and even bigger developments are on the way behind the scenes. 

“Ultimately, we want to provide systems that help students find alumni who can help them and that can allow alumni to offer themselves as mentors to those students who can most benefit from their particular education, experience, and expertise,” she says. “Think interactive database.” 

Drake, a former high school counselor and college admission officer, joined the staff in August and has taken over the Grinnell Regional Admission Support Program, or GRASP. Among other activities, GRASP volunteers attend college fairs and conduct admission interviews where they live. “The program has been around for decades, but this is the first time it has had a full-time coordinator,” Drake says. “As a result, we’ll be able to make some pretty dramatic improvements; we’ve already had a record number of volunteers participate in college fairs over the last three months. Our goal is not only to engage GRASP volunteers more actively, but to make better use of their talents — to more thoroughly train them, to have them work more closely with faculty and staff, and to empower them to provide us with valuable feedback on our admission programs. It really is a new day.”