5Monique minutes with
The following evening, we host your annual Welcome Home Party on the front lawn of the Sam and Martha Gibbons Alumni Center on USF’s Tampa campus. This event has evolved into a huge celebration, with live entertainment, games, food, and the best spot for viewing the Running of the Bulls Homecoming Parade. Pack up the family and round up your friends for a great time with fellow Bulls! More Homecoming events are highlighted on pages 48-49. As for the changes I mentioned earlier, one involves streamlining the association’s membership program. In July, we began phasing out annual membership in order to grow Life Membership and add a new tier, General Membership. Our thousands of paid annual members have been crucial for the growth and development of your Alumni Association for more than 30 years – USF could not have gotten here without you! Now as we focus our efforts on increasing Life Membership, we can also increase our investment in future Bulls. That’s because a large portion of Life Member dues is deposited into an endowment that helps fund the association for generations to come. Of course, Life Members will continue to receive the many benefits of this prestigious designation. Our new General Membership tier will allow us to better engage our entire alumni community. Membership is automatic and free upon USF graduation. This tier recognizes and formalizes our longstanding commitment to serve all alumni and, we hope, ensures everyone feels included and welcome in your Alumni Association. Learn more about these changes at www.usfalumni.org/ FOR MANY OF US, TODAY marks a renaissance of sorts. membershipchanges2021. We’re back in school, back in the office, and back to celebratAlso new, we’ve doubled the number of association staff ing life’s important milestones together. We are returning with working with our alumni chapters and societies. Our voluna greater appreciation for life, liberty and community. And teer-led groups provide the foundation of alumni support for our commitment to excellence is reinvigorated. Your Alumni USF and offer an easy and meaningful way for Bulls to conAssociation is also reinvigorated and it’s a new day! nect with one another and their university, no matter where We recently adopted our new strategic plan, establishing they live. Will Candler, Life Member, and Brian Cziraky, ’14, our aspirations and initiatives through 2024, resulting in have joined Heather Agatstein and Samantha Cleveland, ’16, some exciting changes. They’ll position us to better serve Life Member, as assistant directors for alumni engagement. everyone in our rapidly growing alumni family while also proThis increased commitment to our dedicated volunteers viding the support necessary to help our great university meet will help us achieve an important objective of our strategic its goal of becoming a Top 25 U.S. public university. plan – ensuring alumni engagement at all levels to foster In the meantime, we have a lot to look forward to in the long-term, meaningful involvement with USF. weeks ahead. I hope you plan to join us for Homecoming It’s truly a new day – for you, me, our Alumni Association, 2021, Oct. 31 – Nov. 6. The week includes a Nov. 4 celeand our Preeminent Research University. Together, we’ll make bration of our 2020 USF Alumni Award recipients, since last sure it’s a great day! year’s dinner was postponed due to the pandemic, as well as our 2021 honorees. These awards represent the highest Horns Up! honor USF bestows on its alumni, and two non-alumni, for professional accomplishments and dedicated service, and the Monique Hayes, ’01, Life Member No. 3536 recipients never fail to awe and inspire. Read about them on Chair, USF Alumni Association pages 50-53.
Fellow Bulls,
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UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA
