Greetings from the Alumni Board of Governors Career and Mentorship Committee! Our committee is dedicated to fostering meaningful connections among alumni and between alumni and students, empowering individuals on their professional journeys. Through a variety of networking events and professional development opportunities, both in-person and virtual, we strive to create a vibrant community that supports career growth and mentorship at Occidental College.

After graduating from Occidental as an economics and Spanish literature double major, José Francisco Silva ’84 was among a core group of alumni “who not only realized Latinos did not have networks in place but did something about it,” Sophia Izquierdo Garbellini ’85 wrote following José’s death in 2008. “He is the reason there is a Latino Alumni Association.”

Jon was one of then-President Ted Mitchell’s first hires, coming to Oxy after 16 years as vice president for development and external affairs at Claremont McKenna College. During Jon’s tenure, overall giving to Occidental grew from under $9 million to more than $25 million annually. Of the College’s 10 all-time best fundraising years up to that time, seven happened on Jon’s watch. Jon and his team played a pivotal role in restoring Occidental to solid financial footing at a critical juncture in the College's history.

By any measure, 2023 was a milestone season for Occidental men’s soccer—the Tigers’ first regular-season SCIAC title after 56 years of conference play; its first SCIAC Tournament championship; two historic wins in the Division III Men’s Soccer Tournament; All-SCIAC laurels for eight Tigers (First Team honorees Evan Karp ’24, Andrew Notter ’25, and Joey Schwartz ’23, and Second Team selections Oury Diane ’25, Lukas Howlett ’24, Vicente Navarro ’26, Riley Nyhan ’25, and Max Stanley ’25). Lafaurie and his assistant coaches (Brian Wright, Fabien Segalini, Ernesto Ramirez,

During his 11 years as president of Occidental College, John Brooks Slaughter habitually took his phone and correspondence to the benches outside of his office in the Arthur G. Coons Administrative Center—so often that trustees installed a plaque that read “John Slaughter Cigar and Conversation Bench” to commemorate his retirement in 1999. As students headed back to their residence halls after their morning classes, he later recalled, “Many of them would come sit down on the benches and we'd talk.

Even before he arrived at Occidental, Ben Bauermeister ’82 knew the name Brigida Knauer—“Brig” for short. “My mother had met Brig at a seminar at Bryn Mawr the summer before my freshman year,” he recalls. At the time, Knauer was associate dean of students at Oxy, and “my mom had basically warned Brig to keep an eye on me, which she did.”

As a senior history major at Occidental, Gary Kaplan ’71 served on the search committee to fill a full-time faculty position, with an emphasis on Asian studies, in the History Department. “I was specializing in American and Far Eastern history,” he recalls, “so that’s probably how I got the gig.”

Before I began my term as president of Occidental College back in 2020, I approached two students who had served on the presidential search committee and asked them what they most cherished about Oxy. Both cited the College’s history of activism, a desire to participate in change, and the opportunity to be of service to their community—values which I believe are a source of our strength.

Greetings, fellow Oxy alumni! We want to introduce ourselves as co-chairs of the Alumni Association Board of Governors Enrollment Committee. As students at Occidental, our experiences in and out of the classroom were transformational. Now as alumni working in education, we have an even greater appreciation for our time spent as students at the College. This gratitude for our experience has motivated us to help support the recruitment of the next generation of Tigers through our work with the Board of Governors.

In spring 2021, Colleen Robertson ’05 had recently left her travel marketing job in Seattle when she received a casual job offer from Angelo Carotenuto ’06: How would she like to move to Europe to join his Italy-based tourism company, LivTours? At first, Robertson declined. Between navigating the pandemic and expecting her second child, she already had enough on her plate without an international relocation. But when she was laid off last year, the timing felt right.