“This is my eighth year in the role, and it feels like the first. Things are going so quickly,” MSU Alumni Association Executive Director Scott Westerman tells Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon and Spartans Athletic Director Mark Hollis on MSU Today. “We’re never on auto-pilot at the MSU Alumni Association. We really exist to create mutually-beneficial relationships between the institution and our Spartan Nation for a lifetime.”
Westerman says an important dimension of the work he and his colleagues do is inspire investment.
“There ought to be a way that we can talk more about the value-add that continues throughout our Spartan lives. That’s been my mission since I got here – to transform the whole thought process of alumni relations into a mutually-beneficial relationship.”
Westerman talks about the MSU alumni clubs around the globe and how they’re becoming extensions of the work being done in East Lansing. He describes how MSUAA is working with current students to get them involved in the association while they’re on campus. And he discusses how social media has impacted getting the messages out.
“We have become the people who can create content and disseminate it, and that’s different from the old days when you had to depend on traditional media to get that done. We can all be producers.”
MSU Today airs Sunday afternoons at 4:00 on 94.5 FM and AM 870.