Every alumni organization eventually hits a season where everything seems to change at once. For Northwestern, that season is now.

In this episode of Alumless, Ryan and Chris sit down with Lindsay Vahl Dean — Assistant Vice President for Alumni Engagement and Executive Director of the Northwestern Alumni Association — to talk about leading through it. Lindsay shares how she approaches organizational change management, integrates engagement with fundraising strategy, and builds a culture of advance planning that supports both alumni and staff. Plus: why succession planning and governance at the club level deserve more attention than they get.

Alumless is brought to you by our Season 4 presenting sponsors — Protopia, AlumnIQ, Givzey, and Richmond Associates. We're grateful for their support.

At institutions with centuries of history, traditions can be both a source of strength and a barrier to change. On this episode of Alumless, Ryan and Chris sit down with Carolyn Gray Kimberlin, Vice President for Alumni Relations at Dartmouth College, to explore the tension between preserving institutional identity and evolving alumni engagement for a changing community.

Carolyn reflects on what makes Dartmouth’s alumni culture distinctive, how traditions shape the day-to-day work of engagement, and why leading at a 250-year-old institution requires a different approach to innovation and change management. The conversation explores how institutions can modernize engagement without alienating loyal alumni, and what it takes to bring skeptical stakeholders along during periods of transition.

In the bonus segment, the discussion turns to Dartmouth’s uniquely deep culture of volunteerism, including its network of class, affinity, and regional organizations. Carolyn shares how her team thinks about scaling engagement beyond formal leadership structures and balancing digital engagement with a community rooted in in-person experiences.

Alumless is presented by Protopia, AlumnIQ, and Givzey, and Richmond Associates.

On this week’s Alumless, Kim and Chris sit down with Scott Rosevear, Senior Vice President for University Strategy and Advancement at Bucknell University, to explore what happens when advancement is positioned as part of the institution’s strategic core, not downstream from it. The conversation centers on a simple but consequential shift: aligning engagement, philanthropy, and institutional priorities before a campaign ever goes public.

Scott offers a candid look at what it means to operate across cabinet, trustees, and volunteer leadership while preparing for a campaign launch, and why engagement goals need to be treated with the same rigor as financial targets. Along the way, the discussion surfaces a bigger idea — that advancement isn’t just responsible for outcomes, it helps define them.

Alumless is presented by Protopia, AlumnIQ, and Givzey, with support from Richmond Associates.