Alumni Engagement to Become a Needed Reality at MCTC

Maysville Community and Technical College and numerous other two-year institutions across the state and U. S. have committed this year to actively engage more alumni in the lives of their institutions.

Dr. Laura McCullough, MCTC’s new president/CEO, has made a priority of expanding and energizing her college’s alumni organization.

She says of the alumni effort:

“This is the right time to commit more resources to mobilizing this important constituency to help MCTC be even more effective in serving our students and our communities. We appreciate the preparation that Cara Clarke, Amanda Conley, and Jacob Wolfe started 18 months ago and now believe we have a team in place to fully engage our alumni like never before.”

Four part-time alumni coordinators represent the institution’s campuses in Cynthiana, Maysville, Morehead, and Mt. Sterling. They work in collaboration with an experienced alumni relations professional, who also is a part-time staff member in Institutional Advancement.

The first externally visible project is an awareness campaign to encourage more MCTC graduates and other former students to express their personal pride in the institution by displaying vehicle and home/office decals that identify themselves as an “alumnus for life” because of MCTC. Alumni staff and volunteers will be assisting in community activities.

Keith Kappes, a former advancement vice president at Morehead State, describes himself as the “alumni quarterback” in his work of planning and executing a plan of alumni engagement that will serve the College well into the future. He meets regularly with the four alumni coordinators and other support staff.

“A community college education gave me a great start in life, and I am confident that the vast majority of our MCTC alumni share those same kinds of feelings,” he stated. “Like many of our sister institutions in Kentucky and across the country, MCTC is a latecomer to alumni relations in terms of staffing, but we are determined to make up for lost time.”

He says four-year institutions no longer have the corner on the market in professional alumni relations programs in public higher education.

“At MCTC, we are committed to an ambitious program of alumni engagement, consisting of alumni-driven activities, the quantity and quality of alumni records, lasting and mutually helpful relationships, institutional loyalty, strengthening MCTC’s reputation, and increased external financial support from a variety of sources,” Kappes added. “This won’t happen overnight, but we are laying a foundation for the future and many alumni tell us they are excited about what can be accomplished.”

The part-time alumni coordinators are Christy Kissick, Rowan; Sierra O’Cull, Montgomery; Lauren Mattox, Licking Valley; and Debbie Nolder, Maysville.

MCTC opened in 1968 as Maysville Community College and merged with Rowan Technical College in 2004. The Licking Valley Campus in Cynthiana was added in 1989. The Montgomery Campus in Mt. Sterling opened in 2013.

For more information about MCTC’s alumni relations program, go online to maysville.kctcs.edu or to mctcfoundation.org or contact Kappes via e-mail at keith.kappes@kctcs.edu.