For 50 Years You've Put The ‘GO’ In Go Bulls

To Preeminence and Beyond

Where we are and where we are going

Mouths often gape and eyes open wide in wonder when alumni return to USF for the first time in years. The campus is all grown up – almost beyond recognition for many. It has a metropolitan sophistication, with tall, contemporary buildings devoted to research and enhancing students’ lives; the sangfroid that comes with years of success; and trees, lots of leafy shade trees.

Just as the university has matured and evolved, so has your USF Alumni Association. We took a big step toward a much larger role in the school’s growing success when university leaders brought a change agent on board in 2012.

In hiring the association’s seventh executive director, they found a new leader for a new era, a man brimming with ideas gleaned from six years serving as chief operating officer of the University of Texas’ renowned alumni association, the 134-year-old Texas Exes.
Bill McCausland, MBA ’96, Life Member, and a 1983 UT journalism grad, set out to refocus and rebrand the USF Alumni Association. He wanted to find ways to connect and engage even more Bulls and USF friends.

But on day one, he faced a crisis.

“February 13, 2012 was Bill McCausland’s first day as our new executive director, and it was also the day our Board of Trustees called an emergency meeting,” recalls Richard Heruska, ’11, Life Member, then president of the association’s board of directors. “The state had proposed huge budget cuts for USF, 60 percent of our state funding. It was a much bigger cut than they proposed for any other university. It was unfair and it would have been devastating for our students, the university, everyone.”

Before he’d even unpacked his boxes, McCausland began to rally 270,000 USF grads around the world. That had never been done. While he wasn’t the only leader calling on Bulls to fight for their university, he and the association employed a different strategy. Using specialized technology, they contacted every Bull with an email address and made it easy for recipients to let their legislators know how they felt.

And they did.

“Tens of thousands of alumni sent emails and letters or made calls to elected officials, many of them because of the alumni association. That was a tipping point; the cuts didn’t pass,” Heruska says.

Advocacy – protecting USF – would become a pillar of the association’s newly defined mission.

USF clearly had impassioned alumni, but many weren’t sure about how to connect through the alumni association, and how that connection could make a difference.

“Our first project was a branding initiative, an education campaign. We wanted to show alumni and USF supporters, and even our own staff, exactly what our mission is,” McCausland says. “We exist to help USF succeed. We do that by being a conduit for connecting alumni with each other and with USF. We create meaningful ways for Bulls to contribute: through advocacy, like rallying against budget cuts; by making an impact in important areas like student success; by showing off our USF pride; and by gathering with fellow Bulls to build bonds.”

USF’s most important role is providing students with a world-class education and the alumni association is keen on supporting this, he says.

“The better educated we are, and the better well-rounded our college experience, the more likely we are to be good, productive citizens. Whatever we do, whether we’re doctors or artists or stay-at-home parents, we’re going to be better citizens, better people, because of our USF education. That’s good for the graduates, good for their families, and good for society.”

McCausland next looked to the association’s leadership. He wanted to see a group that was more representative of USF students and alumni, a cross-section of colleges, class years, gender, ethnicity and skill sets. To achieve that, they would need to change the board of directors’ identification and election process.

“We implemented a nominating committee to identify candidates from different backgrounds and with different strengths. The committee would vet candidates to ensure our directors better represent our alumni’s many perspectives and that they’re dedicated to our mission and USF’s success,” McCausland says. “We had to change the by-laws, and it took about a year, but I’m so proud of the result. Our board is very involved and each individual brings a special acumen to the job.”

McCausland has also worked to expand and elevate the Association’s programs, events and communications. He and a staff of 20 have nearly doubled the number of annual activities, including adding the USF Fast 56 Awards and 50-year class reunions, and revising the Outstanding Young Alumni celebration, among others.

They’ve added new programs, including a student-alumni organization, the Order of the Golden Brahman, which brings together students and alumni committed to lifelong advocacy for USF.

All of the association’s existing programs have been upgraded and polished. The annual USF Alumni Awards event, for instance, once a casual afternoon barbecue, is today a prestigious reception and dinner, a major celebration reflective of USF’s most accomplished alumni and devoted supporters.

Looking forward, expect to see more such growth, more events that surprise, delight and engage alumni and friends, and make them proud to be Bulls, McCausland says. He’d also like to one day have the resources to give the association’s 45 alumni chapters and societies around the country and the world even more hands-on time and attention. The groups, led by dedicated volunteers, plan athletic watch parties, scholarship fundraisers, community service and more for their local Bulls.

He envisions a day when grads all over the world connect to USF through a geographic chapter in their own back yard.

“Most USF grads really enjoyed their experience here, whether it was in the 1960s, ’70s or now,” he says. “It’s up to us to keep that emotional attachment going. USF’s continued success depends on it.”