By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau
For the last five years, Noah Wolfe has awakened every day grateful to be part of the Grand Canyon University community.
Now he’ll have an opportunity to engage with alumni who have been part of it for five months or five years or five decades or even longer than that. He’s the new Director of Alumni Engagement, and he can’t wait to start building new relationships and further strengthen old ones.
“This community changed my life,” said Wolfe, who served as the President of the Associated Students of GCU (ASGCU) while he was on campus and has worked in University Development since earning his Bachelor of Science in Business Management degree in April 2019.
“College was not in the cards for me or for my family, statistically speaking, growing up. Having a university like Grand Canyon work so hard to create a model that’s affordable to all socioeconomic classes of Americans made a major impact on the person I am today.”
Said GCU President Brian Mueller, "Noah has an amazing life story. As a young African-American man, he came to GCU and absolutely excelled in a variety of ways, including becoming our student body president. He displayed really strong leadership qualities in his time here and will carry that over into his role as alumni director. He’s young, but he’s a fast learner and he understands the culture and community that GCU embodies, which is important to us."
Wolfe will report to Dr. Kale Gober, GCU’s new Vice President of Advancement. It was Gober’s first major hire since coming to GCU last spring, and he had a simple reason for choosing the San Diego native:
“In looking for the right person to engage with and connect with our alumni, it became evident that we needed someone who understands the culture of GCU and all the great things that GCU does. As a former ASGCU president, Noah embodies what GCU is all about.
“We talked to a lot of people who were ready to be an alumni director; Noah was ready to be the alumni director at GCU. A lot of people are ready for the role; he’s ready for the role and the place, and he’s the perfect fit for what we want to do.”
Gober’s vision of what the Alumni Relations Department is all about:
“GCU has been graduating students for more than 70 years, and every one of them is part of our family. We’ve got to be creative in the ways that we engage people, and we’ve got to be intentional about the ways that we communicate with our alumni.
“We’re very excited to engage alums of all ages – from 1949 or 49 days ago. Regardless of when you graduated from GCU, I promise it has changed, so come back and schedule a visit. We want to meet you.”
Wolfe also will be working to connect graduates with those who have gone before them, mixing both ground and online students.
“Our online alumni demographic is one of a kind,” he said. “Because of this, we see a lot of opportunity to provide some amazing resources and connection to people who are at every stage of their career.”
The networking will be done in a variety of ways, Gober emphasized:
“It’s not one size fits all. Some of them want to come to a night with the Lopes at a Diamondbacks game. Others want to go to a reception on a Thursday night at Phoenix Country Club. Some want to go to Talking Stick Resort or Top Golf.
“There are myriad ways to connect with people, and we want to provide more opportunities for people to get back and give back.”
For Wolfe, giving back has an extremely pleasant ulterior motive: He doesn’t have to leave the place he considers home. He transitioned from student to employee because he has such strong feelings about the University, and now he gets to serve it in an even better way.
“The incredible culture that exists within the GCU community is the byproduct of each and every one of our alumni’s investment into this place,” he said. “We cannot wait to start thanking our alums for this investment in new and creative ways as we continue to pioneer the world of private education together.”
Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or [email protected].
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