At a pivotal moment in the University’s development, The American University of Paris seeks to hire a dynamic experienced and entrepreneurial Director of University Outreach and Advancement. The Office of University Outreach and Advancement comprises development, alumni and parent relations and constituent events.
The new director will:
serve as chief fundraiser, campaign manager, and development strategist during the University’s first comprehensive campaign in partnership with the president, Board members, faculty, University community and volunteer leadership manage the development, alumni, and parent relations functions of the University
coordinate the University’s advancement strategy and related communications and events
connect and engage a global community of alumni, parents, friends and supporters stretching across 142 different countries
The University
Chartered as a liberal arts college in 1962, The American University of Paris is today an urban, independent, international university located at the meeting point of France, Europe, and the world. The University provides a student-centered, career-enabling, and transformative learning experience to the global explorers who are its Bachelor’s and Master’s students, empowering them to cross both disciplinary and cultural borders with ease in order to assume their places as responsible actors and leaders in over 140 countries worldwide.
AUP’s mission is to educate its graduates to communicate effectively in a world of many languages; to read well, listen carefully, and write intelligently in a voice of their own; to become critical thinkers about history and human societies, economics, culture, literature, the arts, science, politics, psychology, business, and communication; to develop creative interdisciplinary solutions to contemporary global challenges; to be digitally literate in a world of swift-paced change; to understand the ethical imperatives of living in such a world; and to move across the cultural borders of the contemporary world with a sense of commitment to and responsibility for a world held in common.
The University achieves its mission by providing to its students a curriculum combining liberal arts inquiry, preparation for professional life, and student-centered, active learning in small classroom settings; dynamic, engaged teaching informed by both disciplinary and interdisciplinary faculty scholarship; a host of opportunities for direct experience of the world and its many cultures; a wealth of intellectual exchanges on campus at conferences of global reach; and an integrated learning model that marries classroom learning and its application to real-world contexts, preparing students to master and to make, to reflect and to apply, to analyze and to act. In these ways, an AUP education supports professional skills development and cultural fluency—the sense of global engagement and the capacity to negotiate difference that emerge naturally from the diversity of AUP’s student and faculty bodies. Upon graduation, AUP students take part in and benefit from the global network that is our worldwide alumni community, creating lifelong connections to one another and to the University.
Location as Endowment
Spread across Paris’ 7th arrondissement stretching from the Eiffel Tower to the Hôtel des Invalides, AUP has the remarkable advantage of its unparalleled location. The University shares this neighborhood with other American institutions, such as the American Library of Paris, and the American Church. This past year, AUP launched an ambitious multi-year campus redevelopment plan which will ultimately consolidate the campus into four or five buildings (from nine). The renovation of a Student Learning Center in 2015-16 follows last year’s renovation of the Student Life facility, and the integration of most University administrative functions in a new building during summer 2015.
AUP’s substantial endowment has always been our location in the greatest city in the world, and, investing it wisely, we have attached our curriculum to the histories of the city—to Paris’s many centuries of art, culture, literature, politics, sociology and the like, to its monuments, libraries, neighborhoods, but also to the edgy new Paris of demographic shifts, rising multiculturalism, food that is other than French, urban renewal, and texts in many different languages.
AUP’s Academic Program
AUP is a small, dynamic “world university” with a curriculum to match—one that focuses on the cross cultural and the comparative in the service of our students. The University’s curriculum is essentially American, although inflected by the international educational background of AUP’s diverse faculty body. The rigorous University curriculum is divided into departments with over 20 undergraduate majors. Interdisciplinary programs and minors flourish, driven by faculty research interests and scholarly passions. AUP is also host to the Center for Writers and Translators, the Cahiers series, the AUP Fine Arts Gallery space, and numerous lecture series, and enjoys partnerships with a global consortium of 26 American universities across Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, as well as with liberal arts institutions in the US, and national universities across Europe.
Students
Supported by a curriculum that promotes active learning and faculty that mentor them closely, AUP’s students today enjoy unequaled cultural experiences and opportunities for lateral learning amongst a diverse group of peers, close relationships with members of staff, integrated advising and career services with demonstrable professional outcomes, and access to a life and learning center in the 7th arrondissement of Paris that puts the student learning experience at its heart. The vast majority of our students are self-selecting, reporting to us that AUP was their first choice (from 75-84% of the entering class over the past few years), drawn as they were to our location in Paris, our multicultural, multilingual community, the reputation of the University, and the adventure of studying in a country that is not their own. These are the students we exist as a university to serve.
In 2013-14, preparing for a new cycle of strategic planning, AUP undertook a year-long study of its most successful, self-selecting students–called global explorers—relying upon institutional research on current and former students, correlation of “fit” characteristics, graduation success and alumni outcomes, as well as a host of retention and financial aid measures. Subsequently, we have been reviewing all processes and practices from recruitment to the curriculum, from student to alumni services, in light of our research into the “fit” AUP student who flourishes in the University’s particular institutional culture. In fact, the University does attract a more mature, independent, globally minded, high-potential student than the average college-going recruit. Global explorers know what they want. The global explorer is hungry for a journey of intellectual, cultural, and personal exploration. Such a student is not daunted by the experience of being “not at home” or being “in the home of another” and is comfortably independent in a foreign environment. Global explorers seek to go beyond the curricular and cultural bounds of their national university systems in search of both intellectual adventure and the cultural challenges of studying abroad. They seek a university experience that helps them to affirm their global citizenship and to shape an international trajectory, both personal and professional. Our research shows that the vast majority leaves AUP, at least initially, to seek careers in the global workplace. A significant minority, using AUP as a springboard to prestigious graduate schools, enjoys the support and mentoring offered by high-profile faculty teacher scholars to pursue post-graduate degrees. Global Explorers are all different and they follow different pathways to and from AUP. The portrait of the AUP student we serve requires nuance, as the University hosts a range of different kinds. Our “fit” students hail from the entire globe, may have parents of two different nationalities and have lived in a third country, speak three or four languages upon entrance, and feel comfortable in a learning environment of great demographic diversity. Another kind of global explorer may have never left his or her country before coming to AUP, but has yearned for the “bigger life”—the study, the languages, the travel, the cultural connections, the feeling of global belonging, the transformative experience—that only an international college degree such as ours can provide. Still other global explorers feel at home in the AUP classroom with its characteristic mix of different nationalities, languages, cultures, ethnicities, ideologies and faiths. Finally, given AUP’s location in Paris and our globally mobile population, our planning and curriculum must take into account the different points of entry of all of AUP’s student constituencies: our three- and four-year degree-seeking undergraduates, one-to-two-year Master’s students, first-year partner program students, third-year study-abroad students, independent visitors, and transfer students.
All of our global explorers, whatever their origins, come forth in search of what we call AUP’s “third culture” community. Since our founding as an international college, we have defined our natural diversity as the air we breathe, one in which no national majority, location, or shared heritage connects members to one another. Instead, such an international environment privileges intellectual and social collaboration amongst people from diverse mono-cultural, bi-cultural, and third-culture backgrounds. Members’ sense of belonging emerges from relationships to others of similar aspirations and ideas and values. There are pocket communities of internationals all over the world that attract global explorers. AUP is one of them.
Faculty
AUP’s faculty body is composed of 28 different nationalities, representing all continents of the world. Dedicated to teaching, the faculty is also richly productive, hosting high numbers of international conferences, study groups, research projects, and events each year. Faculty research tends to focus on the cross-cultural, the comparative, and the interdisciplinary, supporting the University’s mission of producing students for a world held in common. A shared curricular vision informs graduate and undergraduate level teaching, and is one that looks toward global sustainability, conflict resolution, world governance, cultural translation, and address of social injustice by every disciplinary tool at our disposal, but most important of all, focuses upon the steady cultivation of our own and our students’ humanity. AUP has no separate graduate faculty—all faculty members who participate in graduate teaching also teach in the undergraduate program.
University Governance and Reporting Relationships
AUP is led by the President, who is appointed by a 25-member Board of Trustees comprised of dedicated alumni, business leaders, nonprofit leaders, and people from a range of professions and walks of life. AUP’s Board Chair, Raymond Henze, is an AUP parent who has served as Chairman of the Executive Committee and senior trustee at Williams College. Former board chairs of Swarthmore and Grinnell also serve on the AUP board. In October 2009, Celeste Schenck became AUP’s twelfth president. Having served AUP for 25 years in multiple capacities, President Schenck was a Professor of Comparative Literature, Associate Dean for Curriculum Development, Vice President for Academic Innovation, Vice President for Development and Grants Management, Dean of the University and Provost before assuming presidential responsibility. Schenck is a scholar of women’s literature, editor of multiple series, and, more recently, co-author of books on women, culture, and development. She received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and her doctorate from Brown University. The Director of University Outreach and Advancement reports directly to the President, with whom he or she will work intensely and closely. The Director serves as a member of the President’s Cabinet, along with the VP for Student Services, the EVP for Finance and Administration, the Director of Enrollment Management, and the Provost. The Director also works closely with the Board of Trustees, and the Campaign and Development Committees.
The Office of University Outreach and Advancement
Development
AUP has grown and professionalized its development function substantially over the past four years, building on the momentum of the University’s 50th Anniversary in 2012-13 to enter the silent phase of the University’s first comprehensive campaign. The University has made significant investments into resourcing development, raising and allocating funds to expand the staff, invest in prospect research, building prospect pipelines and beginning to deploy frontline fundraisers. The focus in recent years has been on major gifts fundraising, while annual fund efforts continue. Parents are being increasingly solicited for engagement and support.
Alumni and Parent Relations
AUP has a dedicated, alumni (and former student) community of over 16,000 members living in 142 different countries around the globe, a fact that can make consistent engagement and fundraising more challenging than in a wholly regional university context. That said, many AUP alumni are deeply engaged with the University, serving as volunteer leaders on the President’s Alumni Advisory Council (launched in 2013-2014 in the United states, Europe and the Middle East), returning to campus as speakers, providing internships for AUP students, mentoring current students in a successful alumni-to-student mentoring program, and supporting the University in its efforts to maintain contact with and extend our reach to active alumni worldwide. Dedicated alumni trustees now constitute approximately 40% of the Board. In 2013, AUP established a parent relations function, which serves as a central contact point, delivers parent communications, and brings over 450 parents to campus for Orientation and other events throughout the year. The parent of an AUP alumna is now Chair of the Board of Trustees.
The American University of Paris Foundation
The American University of Paris Foundation, Inc. (AUPF) is a New York not-for-profit corporation, recognized as tax exempt under Section 501©(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its primary purpose is to support The American University of Paris, and, as such, it is also recognized as a supporting charity under Section 509 (a) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Chairman of the Foundation serves on the AUP Board and the Foundation has six other trustees, five of whom are alumni and one whom is a former AUP trustee. Three Foundation trustees serve on an Investment Committee and it is planned that the endowment will be overseen by the Foundation and its Investment Committee. The Director of University Outreach and Advancement will work closely with the AUPF, its Trustees, and its Investment Committee on endowment matters, on gift recording between AUP and AUPF, and on donor stewardship.
The Agenda for the Director of University Outreach and Advancement
The new Director of University Outreach and Advancement is expected to be an energetic advancement leader with experience in higher education and a record of meaningful accomplishments in capital drives, success in major gift fundraising, and evidence of effective management of an advancement team. The successful candidate will be motivated by the opportunity to strengthen AUP’s culture of philanthropy through measurable increases in annual, capital, and deferred giving. As the University takes its first campaign public, the Director will play a special role in representing the University as it achieves its ambitious goal of renovating and consolidating the entire Campus in the 7th arrondissement. This campaign will be an Archimedean lever. The specific expectations for the new Director of University Outreach and Advancement include:
Enhancing AUP’s Culture of Giving
The American University of Paris recognizes the existing need and opportunity to expand the University’s resource base. Whether focusing on leading the campaign, nurturing prospects for major and planned gifts, or maintaining the annual fund, the Director of University Outreach and Advancement is expected to have a direct impact on improving AUP’s overall philanthropic culture, while expanding its network of friends and donors. AUP’s trustee and alumni leadership have pledged their full support and involvement. Engaging external constituencies, setting expectations, and establishing priorities on which future fundraising will be based are all elements in the enhancement of AUP’s philanthropic culture.
Partnering with the President
With a new Director of University Outreach and Advancement working closely with AUP’s energetic president, the Advancement team is poised to take a major step forward, thereby rising to the meet the momentum built during AUP’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 21-2013 and fostered ever since leading up to the University’s first comprehensive campaign. The Director of University Outreach and Advancement will be a successful “boots on the ground” fundraiser who knows how to tell the AUP story, how to ask for gift support, and when to encourage the president to do the asking. President Schenck holds the University’s future fundraising success among her highest priorities, and is an active and highly effective partner in the fundraising program. She will expect the Director of University Outreach and Advancement to involve, guide, and counsel her strategically and effectively in soliciting philanthropic support for the University.
Leading The Time is Now Campaign
AUP engaged in a University-wide strategic planning process during 2014-15 in confluence with the crafting of priorities and messaging for The Time is Now campaign. This campaign launched its silent phase in late October 2014 and has already secured gifts and commitments towards 60% of its goal from a small circle of trustees, alumni and current and past parents. Transformative short-term opportunities may warrant raising the internal goal. While The Time is Now is AUP’s first major comprehensive campaign, AUP has an unusually promising pool of prospects – ranging from highly successful entrepreneurs and business owners to business and financial leaders, from celebrity parents to alumni responsible for major multigenerational family fortunes.
Working with the president, the chair of the Board, and the full Board of Trustees, the Director of University Outreach and Advancement will play a central role in every phase of the continued planning, execution and successful closure of the campaign. Advice on messaging, managing and supervising frontline fundraisers and volunteer leadership, and the continued engagement of leadership-level gifts are activities that AUP expects from the new Director of University Outreach and Advancement.
Setting the Bar (Appropriately) High
Establishing optimistic challenges and high expectations across all elements of the program will be important. The Director of University Outreach and Advancement will be expected to bring vision and strategic thinking to meeting challenging future goals. Recruitment of new staff, encouragement and development of current staff, delegation of responsibilities, careful evaluation of professional performance, and oversight of effective working relationships are essential to the development of a productive and successful Advancement program. The understanding and trust that grows from good management practices will enable AUP to achieve desired outcomes for the entire unit.
Engaging the Leadership Team
The Director of University Outreach and Advancement will join a President’s Cabinet that recognizes the need to work together to strengthen AUP’s prominence and financial position. The Director of University Outreach and Advancement will be expected to communicate clearly and openly with administrative colleagues, maintain transparency, and build trust. As a member of this team, the Director of University Outreach and Advancement will bring a critical perspective to the consideration of issues that affect the entire institution. An ability to combine a strong advocacy for the Advancement program while working as a collaborative part of the senior administration will contribute greatly to the Director of University Outreach and Advancement’s effectiveness.
Encouraging Campus-Wide Engagement
Many areas of campus have an interest in establishing closer connections to the fundraising and outreach efforts at AUP. In many cases, there are no better people to bring the detail and vibrancy of opportunities for gift support than the faculty and administrators who engage directly in the delivery of AUP’s educational program. The campus community provides a resource that can add value and expertise to the advancement effort.