Oswego Matters By Executive Director Betsy Oberst

Betsy Oberst

With Passion and Purpose: The Campaign for SUNY Oswego was about so much more than just raising money to build our endowment, increase scholarships, enhance student success and invigorate our intellectual climate at SUNY Oswego. It also created wonderful opportunities to elevate our profile and increase the engagement, spirit, energy, pride and excitement of our 85,000 alumni!

Some of the highlights during the campaign included hundreds of alumni events all across the country that engaged thousands of alumni. We also engaged close to 5,000 alumni and students as volunteers during the course of the campaign in our many programs.

We launched many new initiatives during the campaign that sparked alumni engagement and pride. Our Love a Donor Day program educates students about opportunities provided by donors, as well as gives them a chance to express their gratitude. We also instituted a Tag Day on campus on National Philanthropy Day to highlight donor-funded spaces and programs. The most significant new program was the re-launch of a campus-wide Homecoming in fall 2015 to foster new traditions, spirit and Oswego Pride.

Over the course of the campaign, we brought more than 400 alumni back to campus through the Alumni-in-Residence program to share career advice with more than 26,000 students. We also connected hundreds of students and alumni through the Alumni Sharing Knowledge (ASK) program and programs such as New York City Career Connections.

We ramped up our activity on social media channels to connect with alumni in all of those spaces, and significantly increased the interactions that took place, particularly during major campus events and new fundraising “challenges” during the campaign, such as Lakers Athletics Challenges, the 24-Hour Challenge, the Homecoming Challenge and more.

All of these initiatives serve as points of pride and engagement and showcase the magical spirit of our Oswego Alumni Family. It is exciting to contemplate the continued new and exciting chapters that lie ahead for all of us together as an alumni community that continues to evolve as we look for new and better ways to keep you connected and engaged. We look forward to working with and hearing from all of you as we continue to build our alumni community of the future. How can we better serve you and assist you throughout your life journey as an Oswego alum?

For now, I know I am proud and humbled to have been a part of our SUNY Oswego alumni community for 33 years. A special thanks to all of you from all of us as you continue to make Oz special and magical – both here on campus through your philanthropy and your service – and in your own communities!

#OswegoPride