Faculty
Meet Your Chair
Caryn Schultz Korman
Caryn Schultz Korman has been an institutional advancement professional for more than 25 years in roles that have included alumni relations, data management, and volunteer board management, engagement and fundraising. In her current role, she leads the alumni and donor engagement teams comprised of Annual Giving, Inclusive Engagement, Special Events, Stewardship and Donor Relations and the UIC Alumni Association. Previously she oversaw the alumni engagement efforts and established the first UIC Alumni Association as the inaugural Executive Director. During that time period, she developed the first UIC Alumni Board which is comprised of 70 alumni volunteers. Prior to returning to UIC in 2017, Schultz Korman held senior alumni relations roles at the University of Minnesota at its Alumni Association, Foundation and within the Medical School.
Steve Crawford
For more than 30 years, Steve Crawford has been an advocate for education, working at both the collegiate and independent school levels. He currently serves as an Assistant Vice President at The College of Wooster, and he oversees both Alumni & Family Engagement and Advancement Services. He launched his advancement career at Denison University where he also was an active volunteer with CASE, leading the CASE V district conference twice and serving on the CASE V Cabinet.
Steve holds an MA from The Ohio State University and a BA from Capital University. He brings professional experience in admissions, new student orientation, and college counseling, and he held fulltime positions at Otterbein University, The Wellington School, and both of his alma maters.
Josh Harraman
Josh Harraman serves as the Director, Constituent Experiences- Strategy for The Ohio State University. He recently returned to the University in January 2023. In this role, he is responsible for central engagement and individual annual giving efforts that include digital engagement, annual giving, lifelong learning, alumni travel, alumni career services, and episodic volunteerism. He is also responsible for developing partnerships with college and units in the annual giving and early engagement acquisition space.
Prior to returning to Ohio to start a family, Harraman served as the Vice President for Alumni Engagement, Annual Giving, and Advancement Communications at the Rutgers University Foundation. For over 5 years, he had responsibility for University-wide alumni engagement and annual giving activities and the Foundation’s communication professionals. In addition to his experiences at Rutgers and Ohio State, Harraman previously worked at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and focused on student leadership and involvement. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from The Ohio State University, master’s degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University and completed his doctoral degree in educational philosophy at The Ohio State University in 2019.
Harraman has presented at multiple CASE conferences including CASE Districts V and VI, CASE Young Alumni and Student Engagement Conference, CASE ASAP conferences, and served on the faculty and as co-chair of the CASE Summer Institute in Alumni Relations. He has also volunteered for nearly two decades with CASE District V and has served as Conference Chair and District Chair-Elect in addition to other roles. In 2020, Harraman was recognized by his peers for service to CASE District V by receiving the Mike Ziemianski Distinguished Service Award.
Erika Jordan
As the Associate Senior Vice President, Alumni Relations at the University of Southern California, Erika Jordan serves as the chief alumni engagement officer for the campus and plays a key role in providing leadership and strategic guidance to ensure uninterrupted engagement for the nearly 500,000 alumni in the Trojan Family.
Prior to this role, Erika served as the Vice President, Alumni Engagement at Boston University where she led the Alumni Engagement, Annual Giving, and the Development Events & Communications teams. Additionally, she spent six years serving as Assistant Vice Chancellor, Alumni & Constituent Engagement at UC Irvine. Throughout her career she has been instrumental in exponentially growing alumni engagement and annual fundraising, elevating communications and events, establishing UCI’s dual alumni engagement campaign goal and leading special projects.
Erika has spent her career in politics, special events, alumni relations, frontline fundraising, and served as the Director, Alumni Relations and Annual Giving for the USC Marshall School of Business. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Howard University and executive masters in leadership from USC.
Deidra Smith
Deidra Smith serves as the Senior Director of Alumni and Family Engagement at Davidson College. She brings 16 years of advancement experience with expertise in volunteer management, affinity and identity-based efforts, philanthropy education, board development, and strategic planning. Known for her ability to navigate complex projects with creativity and adaptability, Deidra is committed to developing people as well as programs, and to building innovative engagement strategies that strengthen alumni communities. She graduated from Appalachian State University with a degree in organizational communication and earned a master’s degree in college student affairs administration from the University of Georgia.
Prior to Davidson, Deidra held alumni engagement roles at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Elon University. A Raleigh, NC native, Deidra enjoys practicing yoga and spending quality time with her two nephews.
Jenny Cooke Smith
Jenny Cooke Smith is the Executive Director of CASE Insights in Data, Research & Technology at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, CASE and specialises in analysing advancement trends, interpreting comparison benchmarks, and helping people understand the "stories behind the data". Prior to joining CASE, Smith spent 15 years in a variety of positions within Blackbaud’s Target Analytics, most recently leading donorCentrics™ benchmarking cohorts, providing opportunities for institutions and organisations globally to review and discuss direct marketing and annual giving trends. She joined CASE in 2019 to help members find value through using data and is most proud that through projects like CASE’s Alumni Engagement Metrics, institutions can begin to answer questions such as ‘we know engagement leads to giving, but how do we show it?’. Smith is currently co-teaching a course on CASE’s Global Reporting Standards and researching the latest trends on alumni engagement globally, enjoying opportunities to present again in-person, and working individually with CASE member institutions to develop strategies using CASE data and benchmarks.