Chris Marshall named Cornell University's associate vice president for alumni affairs

Cornell's Division of Alumni Affairs and Development has announced that Chris Marshall, who has been executive director of the Lehigh University Alumni Association for seven years, has accepted the position of Cornell's associate vice president for alumni affairs. He is expected to start June 1.

Marshall will provide strategic direction and leadership to Cornell's global alumni programs, which engage 235,000 alumni with each other and with the university's students, faculty and staff. He also will be charged with developing the vision for alumni affairs programming in partnership with Far Above ... The Campaign for Cornell, a $4 billion, five-year university campaign that was publicly launched in October 2006. The campaign recently passed the $2 billion mark.

"Cornell is very fortunate to have Chris in this important position," said Charles Phlegar, vice president for alumni affairs and development at Cornell. "He possesses a charismatic combination of can-do entrepreneurial spirit and genuine warmth and sensitivity. I am confident that Cornellians will embrace his energetic and visionary leadership and appreciate the many successes he will bring to Cornell and its dedicated alumni community."

Phlegar added: "I'm very grateful to Cornell trustee Karen Rupert Keating '76 for the time and commitment she devoted to chairing the search committee that helped bring Chris on board. I also want to commend Margaret Gallo '81 for the excellent leadership she provided as interim director of alumni affairs and for her contributions as a member of the search committee."

Hailed as a "builder of communities," Marshall restructured Lehigh's regional and international presence for alumni events, improved its reunion program and reinvigorated its alumni admissions outreach program. Under his direction, Lehigh received four Council for the Advancement and Support of Education Circle of Excellence awards for alumni relations programs.

From 2004 to 2007, Marshall also served as president of the Association of Private Colleges and University Alumni Directors, a group of 40 peer institutions from throughout the United States, where he led the effort to develop an online benchmarking and assessment tool to measure successful alumni relations programs.

Marshall, the father of three children, is a 1988 alumnus of Lehigh University. Upon graduating, he served his alma mater as a head coach of its successful men's and women's swimming and diving programs for 12 years.

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