Soundtrack for the Alumni Director’s First Year

1. Mission: Impossible Theme
2. Don’t Worry, Be Happy?- Bobby McFerrin
3. All Star – Smashmouth
4. Takin’ Care of Business – Bachman Turner Overdrive
5. Tubthumping – Chumbawamba
6. Workin’ for a Living – Huey Lewis and the News
7. Money, Money, Money – ABBA
8. If I had $1,000,000 – Barenaked Ladies
9. I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor
10. One Thing Leads to Another – The Fixx
11. The Heat is On – Gloria Gaynor
12. Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears
13. Help! – The Beatles
14. Break My Stride – Matthew Wilder
15. Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gee’s
16. I’m Still Standing – Elton John
17. I Got You (I Feel Good) – James Brown
18. We Are the Champions – Queen
19. Celebration – Kool and the Gang
20. Be True to Your School – The Beach Boys

This playlist was created with the helpful suggestions and votes of more than one hundred people involved in alumni work!

Imagine starting your first day on the job (#1). Your boss welcomes you and let’s you know Homecoming and reunions are the first task for you to handle (#2). You’re excited and jump in (#3, #4). Then the honeymoon and its initial rush wear off and you realize your job isn’t just getting ready for Homecoming (#5, #6). You begin to suspect that alumni work is development work, at least in part (#7). If only you had a bigger budget so you could get everything done and prepare for Homecoming (#8). But you press on (#9).

Homecoming approaches, alumni and colleagues keep calling to see who’s coming, ask why the hotels are so expensive, find out why the school doesn’t have a perfect list of addresses (#10, #12). Even things that seem familiar at first turn out somewhat different (#11 – hey, wait! Shouldn’t that be Glenn Fry singing?).

Then you remember what you learned at the APC Fall Conference: we’re all in this together. So you call some fellow attendees, get great information (and some sympathy), and are off and running again (#13, #14).

You face and make it through the week preceding Homecoming and get to see the people you’ve been working so hard to please (#15, #16, #17). Homecoming is the best the school’s had in years (#18). You love your job and your school (#19, #20)!