terrance-smith,May2022

Terrance D. Smith

Senior Director of Student and Young Alumni Engagement
University of Georgia (UGA) Division of Development and Alumni Relations
Speaker

Bio

Terrance serves as the Senior Director of Student and Young Alumni Engagement at the University of Georgia (UGA). He is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive student to young alumni transition strategy that prepares the approximately 31,000 undergraduate students at UGA to join its diverse community of more than 100,000 engaged young alumni, an important subset of the more than 355,000 UGA alumni worldwide. In addition to overseeing various UGA Alumni Relations programming initiatives, Terrance also oversees UGA’s efforts to expand the culture of student philanthropy, leading the senior class giving campaign to seven consecutive years of record setting growth, with more than 3,000 graduating students making a gift to the university in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Throughout his time in Alumni Relations, Terrance has served as a speaker at regional and national conferences on the topics of student to young alumni transition, student philanthropy, and volunteer management and training.

Prior to joining the Alumni Relations team, Terrance was a professional staff member of the residential life teams at UGA and Purdue University. Terrance’s time in university housing provided him the opportunity to manage large, complex residential communities serving various segments of the student population, including first-year students, student athletes, and international students just to name a few. In addition, Terrance’s residence life experience helped strengthen his skills in supervising, training, and coaching team members as he managed staff at various levels in the organization.

While Terrance has come to call UGA home, his family has strong roots to the Bulldogs of the SEC west, Mississippi State University (MSU). Terrance graduated from MSU with a bachelor’s degree in political science and Oklahoma State University where he received his master’s in Educational Leadership. He’s redefining what it means to be a Double Dawg, as he is a current doctoral candidate at UGA conducting dissertation research on understanding college students’ motivations for giving to their alma maters.