Alumni Relations and Institutional Advancement

What is design thinking?
Why does the ability to be a design thinker matter?
What would the outcomes look like with a world informed by design thinkers?
What if a generation of design thinkers came from Thunderbird Global School of Management?

These are just a few of the questions I’ve been contemplating over the past year.  The more I talked with colleagues and associates, like Thunderbird board of trustee, Dick DeVos, alumni and Global Council members, Jack Taylor ‘71 and David Young ‘91, and family and friends who attended design schools, and the more I read, (A Whole New Mind and Drive, both by Daniel Pink, Out of Our Minds by Sir Ken Robinson, Disrupting Class:  How Disruptive Innovation will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen and The Art of Innovation by IDEO’s general manager, Tom Kelley, among other books and articles), I began to wonder,

What if design schools had access to Thunderbird’s global education and our students had access to design thinkers and methodologies that encouraged and stimulated design thinking? 

What would the world look like if students were encouraged to see problems as design opportunities? What if all students believed in their creative abilities, and had a means to design solutions via alliances with schools of design to productively address any challenge they might identify or dream to solve?

Thunderbird board of fellow and co founder and chairman emeritus of DHL, International, Mr. Po Chung is a perfect example of a design thinker.  He integrated his creative and innovative abilities, with empathy and concern for customers who needed to move their mail internationally.  Mr. Chung built a global business as though it were designed by an artist who sees the angles (perspectives), colors (needs), and shades (possibilities), while paying close attention to the landscape (needs of the client and industry).  And, Po continues to express himself as a design thinker – you can see from his holiday card below that his painting, and his wife, Helen’s calligraphy and poetry are works of design and art and an integral part of their lives.

by Keith C. Kerber, Assistant Director of Annual Giving

I always love to watch the opening of the Olympic Games. It is such a picture of what I’d like the world to be: joyfully and harmoniously celebrating the diversity of cultures around the globe. Save for the unfortunate death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics last Friday was no different.   

Seeing these Olympic ceremonies, I was reminded of my first few days at Thunderbird in Fall 2008.  I was describing the scene at the dining hall to my daughter:  I overheard German spoken over here, Hindi over there, Chinese there, Spanish here. And there were people from dozens of nations working together on group projects or in dialogue. Not something one sees in Phoenix everyday!
Read more »

by Gbemi Disu ‘06, Assistant Director of Leadership Annual Giving

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any #1 school of global management should boast of an extensive research library and database (Indeed this is a modified quote from one of my favorite books by Jane Austen – Pride & Prejudice).

I frequently come by many alumni in my line of work who are saddened by the loss of access to the IBIC post graduation. This has been a topic of many discussions at Thunderbird and unfortunately at this time, the additional licensing costs are prohibitive.

As a small, not for profit institution that does not receive any government funding, Thunderbird is solely dependent on the generosity of its alumni and friends to efficiently run. The result of this is having to make tough decisions about resources and put into practice the business concept of cost management that we teach here on campus! As much as we here in the Institutional Advancement and Alumni Relations office would love to offer the IBIC databases as one of the many benefits afforded to our alumni, we are unfortunately not in a position to do so at this time.

My hope in sharing this post rouses us, the alumni community and backbone of Thunderbird, to band together and establish an IBIC Database Fund that will make this available to us all. It will certainly assist us in our varying professions! I believe that if we approach this with the same fervor as we have done for the Tower Restoration, we can be successful in our efforts.  After all, we are T-birds!

While this is percolating in our hearts and minds, I am also aware that we all want a solution for the present. Therefore, if you are in need of information, you can utilize these alternatives provided by the helpful staff at the IBIC.

Happy Researching!

by Jaime Schilling ‘06, Leadership Annual Giving Officer

One of the top reasons students and alumni cite for choosing Thunderbird for graduate school is the alumni network.  It was one of the major selling points for me when I decided to apply to Thunderbird.  A close-knit group of almost 40,000 individuals spread throughout the globe, working in every industry, the Thunderbird alumni network is perhaps the greatest asset one acquires in becoming a T-bird. 

Yet, my meetings with alumni have brought to light an inconsistency I wanted to address: while T-birds readily praise the value of the alumni network, they aren’t aware of how many resources they have at their fingertips to tap into that invaluable pool.  So, I want to take this opportunity to highlight a couple of those resources…
Read more »

by Alicia Sutton ’09, Program Manager

Over the past two weeks, I have received information through the Thunderbird Alumni Network about several T-birds who are engaged with the Haiti relief efforts both in-person and from afar. These stories are evidence of three key facts about Thunderbirds:

1. Our inherent global mindset allows our quick reaction to global events.
2. Other people turn to us when there is a global solution needed.
3. It is important to T-birds to celebrate the victories of others in the Thunderbird Network.

Jochen Gliss ’02 was recently sent to Haiti to assist with rescue efforts. Jochen works for Freeport-McMoran, the global copper conglomerate based in Phoenix and New Orleans.  Freeport-McMoran owns a rare type of highly sensitive equipment that can detect heartbeats in mines.  A team of Freeport personnel was sent in to Haiti and has been working on the ground to support the multinational efforts there.  He appears briefly in this clip from Good Morning America: Amazing Haitian Rescues.
Read more »

by Gbemi Disu ‘06, Assistant Director, Leadership Annual Giving

The purpose of my blog today is to applaud the efforts of recent alum Alicia Morris ’09 who successfully reinstated the matching gift program at Cisco for Thunderbird. I recall about a year ago chatting with Alicia about the challenges of educational fundraising. It turns out that Alicia was quite familiar with this topic as she had previously worked in development at the University of Chicago. She had stated how this solidified her philanthropic intent towards her alma mater as she was privy to how challenging it was for some institutions to raise funds. She mentioned that if only alumni globally realized that a gift of even $5 was better than no gift at all, it would boost educational funding significantly! I jokingly told her that I would remind her of these comments once she became Thunderbird alum herself! It turns out that I did not even need to do so. Alicia reached out to me for some information that she needed to get Thunderbird back on the list at her company in an effort to garner corporate matching gifts for the school! I was very impressed by her initiative and was curious about the outcome.
Read more »

by Keith C. Kerber, Assistant Director of Annual Giving

As I walked across the Thunderbird campus, the cool breezes carried the scent of fresh cut pine…not something I normally smell on the campus.  I looked into the wind and discerned the scent to be coming from the Tower building.

In the last 36 hours, the campus (and most of Arizona) was drenched with more than an inch of rain and everything is soaked.  Apparently the Tower’s exposed rafters and studs, now swelling from the rain, were the source of the aroma as the wind blew over the structure.

So I stopped for a moment and looked more closely at its bare roof and skeletal interior.  Although it is quite barren now, with admiration for all it has stood for, I imagined how stately it would be when complete. 
Read more »

by Jaime Schilling ‘06, Leadership Annual Giving Officer

Settling in at my desk this morning to begin the day’s tasks, I couldn’t shake my somber mood as I continued to ponder the images I’d seen on the news before I left for work of the devastation in Haiti caused by the January 12th earthquake.  A Thunderbird alumna from 2006, I was one of the early graduates from Thunderbird’s recently instituted International Development track.  Through my studies and beyond, I have spent much of the last few years researching and contemplating sustainable solutions for struggling countries and economies.  This morning, I find myself perplexed, yet again, with the same issue that’s troubled me for years: The world’s poorest countries are already faced with such a potent mélange of challenges to development, all so fundamental to a nation’s healthy functioning — geographical constraints, political instability, underdeveloped infrastructure, widespread disease – that gains made in any one area can be utterly wiped out by a breakdown in another.  This is Haiti’s reality.  The most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere, Haiti has achieved some hard-fought gains in the past several years, only to be devastated by a natural disaster before it can gain a solid foothold on the economic development ladder.
Read more »

by Keith C. Kerber, Assistant Director of Annual Giving

The turn of a new year always brings about new predictions.  And with the turn of a new decade, there are myriad predictions out there for everything.  The pundits are not afraid to make predictions about the economy that range from doom and gloom to full recovery.

Most of us likely believe that in 2010, the global economy will recover to a point somewhere in between those two extremes.  Whatever the case, there will be plenty of opportunities to prosper for those who look for them and work for them.

Thunderbird, via its alumni, will no doubt play a role in the global economic recovery.  These alumni are adventurous business people, unafraid to try new ideas.  They work tenaciously to find solutions that make processes more efficient and productive.  Therefore, I predict…drum roll, please….that T-birds will make a positive difference in global economic recovery this year and this decade!

Hippocrates said, “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”  I look forward to hearing from T-birds about the opportunities they discover and create while the global economy heals from the wounds of irresponsible management.

Wishing all T-birds a happy, successful, and prosperous new year!

If you’d like to contribute to Thunderbird’s efforts to heal the global  economy by educating global leaders, please give a gift here.

by Gbemi Disu ‘06, Assistant Director of Leadership Annual Giving

Back here at the “Thunderbird Kingdom”, Glendale (A member of the last graduating class coined this phrase), we love to hear constructive feedback from our alumni on how we may best serve their needs.  As a business school, I am sure the terms opportunity cost, scale of preference, trade offs, payback periods and return on investments are familiar words.  However, in general, people tend to want things cheaper, faster, better –- myself included.

Recently, the idea of launching an alumni donor benefits society surfaced and it was termed the Thunderbird Flight Society.  The main purpose of this is to provide additional benefits to alumni.  I say additional as a plethora of benefits are already being afforded. These can be found on our Alumni Benefits page.

The beauty and the challenge of an eclectic global bubble like ours is the vast difference in needs and wants.  While philanthropy is mostly an altruistic endeavor, we understand that providing some benefits helps incentivize some alumni to financially support the school.

As a member of the team tasked with developing this society, I am reaching out to you all, my best resource, to garner your thoughts on what you want.  Understanding the limitations of being a small, not-for-profit institution with no government funding, please share your thoughts on what top 5 things you would like Thunderbird to provide that you would be willing to pay for if asked to.  While this will not be a fee based society but rather donation based, you can be as creative as you want. In doing informal focus groups with a few alumni things like a global recipe site, global music playlist, IBIC database, etc., there are a few ideas that have been thrown out there.  The sky’s the limit with our flight society!  Hope to hear from some of you soon!