It's not unusual for Alumni Relations and Annual Fund offices to work together, but not many are fully integrated. Nova Southeastern University is one of those exceptions.

We asked Jason Lyons, Associate Director of the Annual Fund, and Rachel M. Mojica, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, to tell us about their CASE District 3 presentation, "Excite, Engage, Evaluate! Alumni Relations and Annual Fund Collaboration." They explained why Nova decided to integrate its Annual Fund and Alumni Relations offices and how that change is paying off.

Bridging the gap between advancement and alumni relations can be hard—even when one office is asking something of the other.

To solve this problem, Elon University created a unique hybrid position: the Alumni Engagement Officer. Elon has used its AEOs to increase rates of attendance, volunteering, giving, and retention.

We spoke with Tricia Teter, senior alumni engagement officer, and Jill Hollis, coordinator of alumni engagement and special events, to tell us more about the Alumni Engagement Officer position and the strategy behind it. They recently presented on the topic at the CASE Divison III Conference in Nashville.

Community colleges do some of the most important work in higher education in the country, and they have do it all on a shoestring budget.

The same is true of their alumni relations efforts.

We asked Doug Ferguson, director of alumni programs at Delaware County Community College, and Tobi Bruhn, associate vice president of advancement and executive director of the Foundation and Alumni Association at Bucks County Community College, to share what they've learned in their work.

Our Q&A is a preview of their CASE District 2 panel, "Best Practices for Community College Alumni Relations and Fundraising," which they'll be holding at 11:15 AM on Monday, February 8.

We asked Lacy Paschal at Vanderbilt University and Erin O'Neil at McMaster University what their teams like about Slack, why they made the switch, and what their favorite integrations are.