A Conversation with Dale Stowell

photo by Nora Palmtag

Dale Stowell, New Executive Director of College Advancement, talked about how his student experience formed the way he thinks, about what he does things, and why he does it.

Stowell wants to make things happen for students instead of it being about luck, as it was with him.

In the 3 months he has been here, Stowell has restructured his department, eliminating a publication and  coordinator position.  Hiring a grant manager will be one of his objectives, helping faculty with grant needs and prospecting for additional funds for instructional programs, from scholarships to grant money which help increase the funding stream. 

Public information, public relations, and community relations, advancing the college in the community will be the main objective of his office.

Last week, he asked for a sub group to develop a retreat, setting long term funding program that the college has not seen in years to build a foundation where we have funds which can be reinvested and grow each year through resource development and fund-raising.

There are a lot of funding programs at other colleges but most are at universities, like OSU with a billion dollar funding but have been around for over a hundred years compared to LBCC starting in 1967.  Last year we raised 1.7 million dollars but we need to multiply this with the fund raising initiative and ramp up the fundraising.

Stowell want to revamp the web server with 2 portals.    These 2 portals are in development in the web server initiative and should be operational  within 14 months.

One of the problems with the website is that it is trying to serve everyone with 3000 pages, cramming so much information on the front page, and make everything easy to find. 

First Stowell wants to have a portal for dealing with people who are interested in the college and getting them enrolled.

One of the portal concepts Stowell wants is a personalized website for each student.  Then Stowell wants to have a portal for current student to pull information, so that do not have to wade through the website for information, redesigning our website so that it is a little more intuitive and take some of the pressure off the website is one of his objectives. 

When asked how will you get students involved?  Stowell stated that he and his staff will be doing research on what the students needs are and how they use the website.

In his experience, we need to get students further along in their decision-making process and their plans for completion. Relationships with someone on campus, being a part of a group with related interests, before coming to school, help the student make the decision and know the process to succeed.

 “In his position, Dale will work with faculty, staff and students in promoting the college and will lead the Foundation in fundraising efforts. He also will serve as the college public information officer,” per LBCC web page on Stowell.

Two sites found on the net to help with fundraising at a college level are http://www.fundraising-ideas.org/find/college.html and

http://www.fundraiserinsight.org/groups/collegestudentfundraising.html.

At A Glance:

Dale Stowell
New Executive Director of College Advancement

Objectives:

Ramp up fundraising for LBCC

Revamp our website

Hobbies-reading, gardening, working out and has won five golf events in the past three years with a eight handicap.