The Jindal School alumni relations team won a 2021 award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) for reviving and improving alumni efforts in the school.

Hired in 2019 after an extended period when their posts were vacant, Alumni Relations Director Caylin Blockley and Assistant Director Catherine Raffetto that fall oversaw 50 regional, reunion, affinity, academic, one-on-one meetings and student events with a total of 2,189 attendees. They increased alumni engagement 35%, organized a new approach to handle the Dean’s Circle, a giving society that cultivates gifts of $1,000 or more, and accomplished an 8% increase in individual gifts.

In 2020 they saw a 17% increase from the previous year of new users on the JindalConnect alumni platform, bringing total users to more than 12,000. They also started an alumni book club. And moving away from traditional events during the pandemic, they collaborated with academic programs to offer networking and learning opportunities to alumni around the world through webinars covering a wide variety of topics from real estate to retail.

CASE District IV, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, awarded them a 2021 Circle of Excellence Bronze Award for distinguished effort.