Staff Support for Clubs
Engagement staff (a division of Advancement) are your primary points of contact at Vassar. They are here to help you by providing the following:
General Support
- Advice, guidance, and support, which may include assistance with programming concepts and speakers, event logistics, communications, and volunteer recruitment.
- Regular communication and information sharing
- Insurance coverage for all volunteers including Directors and Officers (D&O) Liability and General Liability.
- Training opportunities, including our annual Vassar College Volunteer Conference (VCVC).
Data & Information
- Assistance with data analysis and management of data (e.g. event attendance, club population demographics, club area contact lists).
- Registration lists for club events.
- Creation of surveys that can be customized and emailed to club membership.
- Upon request, lists of alums in the club area that may include alum names, class years, geographic location, and contact information.
- The information shared in these lists is sensitive data and is provided to volunteers at the discretion of Advancement with undertanding that the expectations of confidentiality outlined in Vassar’s Best Practices for Alum Volunteers will be met.
- We ask that volunteers do not compile alum contact information into a private list or use it to send mass emails outside of Vassar’s broadcast email system.
Event Promotion & Logistics
- Processing email and event registration requests.
- Be mindful of request deadlines to ensure sufficient time for processing.
- Management and processing of online event registration fees.
- Timely payment of vendors and assistance with contract negotiation (when necessary).
- College staff must sign contracts and pay deposits and final bills to ensure volunteers are protected from liability.
- Vassar can pay international vendors and venues by wire or credit card (we cannot issue checks in a foreign currency).
- Assistance with virtual events, including access to Vassar Zoom accounts when available.
What Vassar Staff Cannot Do
- Provide information about individual students.
- Connect you with Vassar’s celebrity alums. Please do not ask us to contact them about your event.
- Arrange for Vassar’s President or other Senior Leadership to participate in club events. Their time and appearances are extremely limited, heavily scheduled, and reserved for events that advance institutional priorities.
- Promise that current Vassar faculty can be arranged for your event(s). Faculty are in high demand on campus and for other events nationally and internationally. We encourage clubs to look for alums who are professors at other institutions, or consider Vassar faculty emeriti instead.
- Requests for Vassar faculty emeriti (or inquiries about current faculty) must go through Advancement so we can help navigate the demands on their time.