News (blog)

I am pondering this question as I prepare for an all-staff University Advancement retreat here at NC State that begins in 15 minutes.  Our theme is “New Chancellor – New Campaign: Navigating Change and Seizing Opportunities.”  One of my personal roles during the retreat is to help the non-AS UA staff – some 160 souls – understand what we in AS believe our role is in supporting both a new Chancellor and, eventually, a new campaign.  How do I advise those folk in a clear and concise way?  I have to chuckle to myself.  It was almost exactly 20 years ago when 30-40 of us gathered in Florida for the first-ever AS conference thrown together by a few of us, and we wore buttons asking this same question!  Well, talk about navigating change!  Advancement Services sure has changed measurably since then.  Ten times that number of attendees are now members of AASP.  Ten times that are subscribers to FundSvcs.  Neither of those resources existed at the time of that first conference (and neither did the public Internet!).  And take a look at the recent AASP staffing survey if you want to boggle your mind over the diversity that is Advancement Services.  One thing I do know for sure is that we at AASP are doing, and will do, everything we can to support the role and mission of Advancement Services professionals.  Now I better stop blogging and figuring out how to explain what that role is in less than 4 sentences!