Faculty
Conference Co-Chairs
Julie Decker
Julie Decker is president and chief executive officer of the Florida State University Alumni Association. Decker has spent 20 years as an alumni relations strategist, having also worked in the alumni associations of the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina, and Coastal Carolina University. Through her career she has managed programming, fundraising special projects, budgeting, student leadership, operations, and the cultivation of volunteers and boards.
Decker is passionate about the practice of Alumni Relations as an intentional partner to the overall advancement strategy.
Decker holds two degrees from the University of Georgia: a Bachelor of Arts in communication studies and a Master of Education in human resources and organizational development. In addition, she has completed doctoral coursework in organizational development and higher education at UGA, studying the changing landscape of alumni relations and advancement work.
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.
Faculty
Joycelyn Blizzard
Joycelyn serves as the director of multicultural alumni engagement at Bowdoin College. Previously, Joycelyn B. Blizzard, CFRE served as the director of alumnae relations and director of the annual fund, and then as the director of development at St. Margaret's School. Joycelyn joined SMS from Beaver Country Day School. Previously, Joycelyn’s was in public service and civic engagement. That work included advocation with Demand Abolition, an organization to end the demand for commercial sex. Additionally, she’s served in the Virginia Governor's Office and The White House. While in Washington, she was formally introduced to the world of philanthropy at Democracy Alliance, a national partnership of high net-worth donors, and has not looked back.
A native of Henrico, Joycelyn earned her B.A. from the University of Richmond and an M.A. from Virginia Tech. She and her husband, Rev. Linwood Blizzard, II make their home in Heathsville, VA near Macedonia Baptist Church, where he is the pastor. The joy of her life is being with her husband and their three young children.
Virginia Halverson
Virginia is the Assistant Vice President of Institutional Engagement at Scripps College, and has served Scripps for eight years in various leadership roles including Executive Director of Institutional Engagement, Director of Parent Engagement and Philanthropy, and a Senior Advancement Officer. In her current role she oversees the Alumnae Engagement, Parent Engagement, Donor Relations/Stewardship, and Career Planning & Resources departments. Her teams work to design, execute, and evaluate Scripps’ on-campus, regional, and digital programs to cultivate purposeful, mutually-beneficial, and lifelong relationships between Scripps College and its global community. Prior to Scripps, Virginia held positions at Whittier College and Chapman University. Virginia earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Smith College and a Master of Business Administration from Chapman University.
Marjorie Jean-Paul
Marjorie Jean-Paul has over 25 years of experience working in mission-driven organizations. She has worked in the corporate and private sectors over the course of her career designing programs around strategic development, communications, marketing, and promotions to increase resources for nonprofit organizations.
For the past 15 years, she has worked with best-in-class private independent schools as a senior administrator responsible for major gift fundraising - capital and endowment campaigns, annual fund and events, alumni relations, and board development. In addition to her role at private schools, she served on the Diversity Committee, volunteered on the Planning Committee for the annual New York Association of Independent School Institutional Advancement Conference for the past three years where she was instrumental in guiding topic selection, securing speakers for the conference and structuring the conference. Recently, she was involved with organizing an online conference for more than 200 advancement professionals from private schools around the state of New York. The topic was on the role of advancement professionals in supporting work around racial equity and diversity, as well as exploring practices that create more inclusive communities for students, their family and faculty.
Most recently, she was appointed to chair a 70-person committee tasked with developing a community engagement and inclusion plan. Her planning, organizational and relational skills were crucial in successfully managing the group and resulting in a plan to guide the work of the school around faculty DEI professional development, recruitment, anti-racist school culture, programming, and activities.
Marjorie co-founded a group for Black advancement professionals at private independent schools in the New York metro area. The Black@ movement at many private independent schools inspired Marjorie to create this group. As schools are called to account for the impact of the ongoing anti-Black racism that has caused pain and trauma for generations of students, this group not only provides support for students and the members but also to the schools. Black Advancement Networking Group (BANG) was created to discuss how to forge a path together and find out how to best be of service and support to each other and resources for our school.
A New Yorker at heart, she was born and raised in the metro New York area. Marjorie currently residents in Nassau County with her husband and two children. She is a graduate of Cornell University with a BS in Human Development and Family Studies and the New School, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy she earned an MS in nonprofit management and a certificate in Organization Management and Change. She recently completed the diversity, equity, and inclusion certificate program from Cornell.
William L. Pierce
William currently serves as the Associate Vice President of Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving at University of Toledo Foundation. He and his team are responsible for engaging and connecting alumni, students and friends with the University and each other. He has management oversight of all alumni programs and activities while working collaboratively with campus partners, volunteer and advisory committees to plan and implement strategies designed to increase engagement and affinity amongst alumni.
Prior to his time with the Office of Alumni Engagement, William served as the Senior Director of Undergraduate Admission at The University of Toledo where his team was responsible for the recruitment of traditional age high school students, non-traditional students, and students with a military background or affiliation.
William’s professional career in higher education spans close to twenty years and is grounded by his passion for creating access to college for all students who desire to further their education. He has had the distinct privilege of speaking to regional and national audiences on the topics of strategic recruitment and best practice enrollment strategies as well as use of innovative technologies and data science to achieve results.
While William has served the majority of his career at The University of Toledo, he has also served in director roles at Creighton University and the University of Michigan.
William received his Bachelor of Science degree in Administrative Services in 1999 and his Master of Business Administration degree in 2009, both from The University of Toledo. He is currently a PhD Candidate in Higher Education Administration, also at The University of Toledo.
Durice White Galloway
Durice is a former Associate Vice President for Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving Strategies. She brings over a decade of experience working in University Advancement and higher education in roles supporting alumni engagement, annual giving, alumni communications and major giving. Previously, Durice served as the senior executive director of alumni engagement for the University of California – San Diego, where she led a team of 20+ professionals to provide programming, engagement and lifelong learning opportunities for the institution’s 200,000+ alumni base. Durice has also worked at Duke University as the interim associate dean of development and alumni relations for the Sanford School of Public Policy and in progressive roles within advancement at her alma mater, Elon University, in North Carolina. She received both her undergraduate and graduate degree from Elon University.
Durice has become a decorated professional, recognized for her professional accomplishments by her alma mater and our industry’s professional association, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education where she serves on the CASE Alumni Relations Commission.
A driving force in her work is her personal grounding in equity, diversity, and inclusion. She has devoted herself to ensuring that all members of an alumni community feel welcome, supported, and represented. To that end, she has been intentionally focused on establishing alumni networks that represent the populations she serves. Specifically, at Elon, she was the leading force behind the LGBTQIA Alumni Network and managed the Elon Black Association Network (EBAN), which would later honor her for her achievements as an exemplary representative of the Elon University community. At UC San Diego and Duke, Durice kicked off programming in empowering women leaders and advancing multiple cultural affinity networks.
Durice is married to her college sweetheart, VJ Galloway, and together they are raising their son, Camden.
Guest Speaker
Rosetta L. Clay
Rosetta L. Clay is a full-time doctoral student studying Diversity & Equity in Education with an emphasis in Human Resource Development at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After more than 15 years working in philanthropy and alumni engagement in higher education, Rosetta realized her passion as her purpose and pivoted professionally to add her voice to the critical work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) with a focus on equity and belonging. As a belonging advocate seeking equity, Rosetta is committed to educating and empowering individuals, institutions, and organizations to understand the theory of belonging through a process of becoming “diverse by design.” Rosetta currently consults on various DEI&B and business projects, facilitates inclusive workshops, and presents on the journey of diversity, equity, and inclusion leading to belonging.
Rosetta has a wealth of knowledge in administrative leadership, philanthropic engagement, organizational leadership, and strategic planning. She has also led numerous teams including annual giving, special events, and marketing communications. Her experience includes leadership roles at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business (B1G Ten) and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (#1 public HBCU). She has also strategically directed alumni board development and restructuring, division planning, special events and marketing communications. Rosetta has always approached her roles from a lens of inclusivity with a goal for equitable outcomes. She understands the importance of diversity on college campuses as a reflection of the larger society which is a driving component to ensuring greater representation for minoritized individuals while educating those in the dominant population(s).
Rosetta received her bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. She earned her master’s degree in Marketing with an emphasis in Strategic Communications from The Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jenny Cooke Smith
Jenny Cooke Smith es consultora estratégica Senor para CASE, con un enfoque en AMAtlassm, el recurso global para métricas, evaluaciones comparativas y análisis relacionados con Advancement.
Jenny se especializa en analizar tendencias de Advancement, interpretar puntos de referencia comparativos y ayudar a las personas a comprender las "historias detrás de los datos". En esta función, es responsable de desarrollar y liderar grupos de cohorte facilitados para ayudar a los miembros a comprender mejor los resultados de avance por área de práctica, informando así el liderazgo intelectual y las mejores prácticas.
Antes de unirse a CASE, Jenny pasó 15 años en una variedad de posiciones dentro de Target Analytics de Blackbaud, más recientemente liderando cohortes de evaluación comparativa de donorCentrics ™, que brindan oportunidades para que las instituciones y organizaciones a nivel mundial revisen y discutan el marketing directo y las tendencias de donaciones anuales. Durante su tiempo en este cargo, creó y amplió los grupos de cohorte de educación superior, estimuló el desarrollo para analizar el impacto de iniciativas más nuevas dentro de la recaudación de fondos, como los días de donaciones, el crowdfunding y el análisis de donaciones de nivel medio, y se asoció con oficinas en Canadá, el Reino Unido y Australia para ofrecer resultados específicos para las ONG en esos mercados de recaudación de fondos. Jenny también ha sido voluntaria de CASE y oradora frecuente en conferencias de CASE.