Jennifer Barber, Sacramento State’s new director of alumni relations, has plans for making the alumni association more relevant to students by connecting them with alumni through mentoring, scholarships and events.

“I was thrilled this summer when I saw the opportunity here at Sac State,” Barber said. “A number of people I met with just had these stories of the students at Sac State and what they had gone through to make college and education a priority in their life, and it inspired me as a place I wanted to be and a cause I wanted to be working toward.”

Professor of learning skills and Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Letters Nancy Tooker said that the board of directors for the alumni association believes that Barber will be a wonderful asset to our community. “We did a full search and Jennifer Barber, we were very pleased to discover, was the best qualified candidate,” Tooker said.

Since her arrival at Sac State, Barber has been busy acquainting herself with the university.

“I’ve been learning a lot about the president’s priorities for the campus, his Destination 2010 program, getting familiar with the strategic plan for the campus because, most importantly, I want to make sure that what we do as an association is supporting where the university is going into the future,” Barber said. “I’m learning about the campus, what the association has done, what it plans to do and then using my experience to help shape that.”

After finishing her degree at UC Davis, Barber worked as an accountant for two years before realizing she wanted a job where she could work more closely with people on a personal level.

“I started looking around and there was an opening at the alumni association at UC Davis,” said Barber.

Barber has had experience in alumni affairs since 1994, when she started working at the Cal Aggie Alumni Association. In her years there, Barber recruited and trained volunteer leadership, launched a fundraising effort, guided strategic planning and oversaw operations.

Tess Chandler, director of development for alumni relations worked with Barber at the Cal Aggie Alumni Association.

“Jennifer was wonderful to work with, she has such passion for the alumni,” Chandler said. “She had really good ideas on how to connect alumni to our campus and she would see those ideas through. I think that’s what stood out the most.”

She will spend her first few months at Sac State getting to know the people on campus, programs and students.

“It’s hard to say at this point what new things I could bring when I’m still learning what’s already in place here,” Barber said.

Barber plans to expand many of the association’s programs and services. Her focus will be on further developing the association’s membership program, scholarship program, its international chapter and bringing new groups into the association.

“We just recently had a group of basketball alumni that wanted to start a chapter, so their charter was approved at our board meeting on Monday. There’s a lot of interest out there and we’re trying to channel that,” Barber said.

That is exactly the direction some Sac State alums want the alumni association to go.

Joanne Ayar just graduated in May and is looking forward to getting involved in the programs that the alumni association has to offer.

“While I can’t necessarily offer financial contributions, I am still willing to offer help to students any way I can. I would be very interested in mentoring opportunities and volunteering my time that way,” Ayar said.

Sac State alumni are spread throughout the world and the alumni association is reaching out to graduates wherever they may be.

Sac State’s international chapter of the alumni association in Hong Kong is doing well according to Barber. The group of 20 to 30 members was established in November of 2007 to provide a network for graduates in China.

Barber said the association is hosting the first Sac State International Alumni Summit in China the last week of October.

“We had about 30 alumni sign up and pay to go on this trip,” Barber said. “They’re going to meet up with the chapter there in Hong Kong and have two days of meetings to talk about collaborating across the ocean and how they can continue to support Sac State. The president is going on that trip as well.”

There are no plans for more international centers yet, Barber said, but if the opportunity arises she is willing to consider it as a possibility.

“I know this opportunity really presented itself because we have a faculty member on campus who travels to the Hong Kong region a couple of times a year and had stayed in touch with former students that are in that region. So he was able to really help them initially organize and get the group off the ground,” Barber said. “Maybe looking for other natural opportunities like that where we have faculty members who regularly travel to another part of the world would potentially open that door further for more international chapters.”

Barber said her favorite part about her new position is how impressed she has been with the campus as a whole.

“Everyone has been so friendly and so welcoming and so excited to find out how they can help and how they can make things bigger and better,” she said. “It’s just really neat to be surrounded by that enthusiasm, which trust me, you don’t find everywhere, and I think it’s very unique to this campus. It makes me want to come to work.”

Tammy Nazanda can be reached at [email protected]