New Executive Director for Alumnae Association
"Jane brings the combination of high energy, intellect and interpersonal skills that will engage both our alumnae around the world and our colleagues on campus in our mission of connecting alumnae to Mount Holyoke and to each other. She is dedicated and speaks eloquently about the role of women's education, the liberal arts, and the mission of fostering women's connections for the purpose of life-long learning and personal achievement."
—Mary Graham Davis '65, President of the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College
"We're delighted that Jane Zachary will be joining the Mount Holyoke community. I am confident that she will pick up where Rochelle Calhoun left off in supporting the effective partnership between the College and the Association, which is essential to all we do. I am looking forward to the new ideas and strong colleagueship that I know she will bring."
—Joanne V. Creighton, President of Mount Holyoke College
After an extensive nationwide search, led by the Alumnae Association executive search-committee and chaired by Joanna MacWilliams Jones ’67 and Susie Beers Betzer ’65*, we have chosen Jane E. Zachary as the new executive director of the association. Jane will join us in January 2009. She has served as director of alumni relations for Chatham University, her alma mater, for the past five years and comes to us with a strong background in liberal arts women’s education as well as management abilities developed as a Superior Court administrator and alumnae director. Her skills, background, experience, and professional demeanor are precisely what we feel the association needs today, and we are delighted to have her join our community.
Here is some background information about Jane, which we encourage you to share with classmates, club members, and friends. In 1979, Jane received her bachelor’s in political science from Chatham College, a selective women’s liberal arts college in Pittsburgh, PA. Although Chatham became a university in 2007, Chatham College for Women remains the core of the institution. After obtaining her J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1982, Jane focused her career within the Pennsylvania judiciary for the next 16 years. Initially, she worked as a law clerk at both the trial and appellate levels, and then turned her expertise to court management. She has served as the executive administrator of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, a state-wide intermediate appellate court, and also as the director of the family division of the trial court in Allegheny County.
After nearly two decades of professional success in the field of law, Jane decided several years ago to make a career transition. She wanted to meet accomplished people with expertise in a wide variety of areas and, especially, to apply her interpersonal and management skills to a more positive, consensus-building work environment. This decision led Jane to her next position as director of alumni relations for her alma mater. During her five-year tenure at Chatham, she instituted numerous programs that reinvigorated the engagement of the undergraduate alumnae as well as the graduate alumni of Chatham University. She was responsible for all aspects of alumni relations including:
- organizing and conducting reunions and social and educational events;
- recruiting and managing volunteers; administratively leading a volunteer alumni board;
- developing programs in conjunction with faculty and staff that provide career and professional development support to students and alumni; and
- initiating programs with the dean, alumnae, and students to honor and preserve the unique traditions that define the women’s-college experience.
In Jane, we have found the special combination of management skills, alumnae and higher education experience, and women’s college and liberal-arts values. She is passionate about women’s education and dedicated to college and alumnae traditions—at her own alma mater and now at Mount Holyoke.
We would now like to acknowledge the members of the executive search committee, who dedicated themselves to the search process for many months. In addition to the exceptionally effective co-chairs mentioned above, they are: Patricia Crane Furnivall ’50*, Karen M. Hendricks 76*, Cynthia L. Reed ’80, Sandra A. Mallalieu ’91, Carrianna K. Field ’97, and Lisa M. Utzinger ’02. Alumnae Association President Mary Graham Davis ’65 was also instrumental to the process, and we offer her our heartfelt thanks.
Please join us in giving Jane a warm welcome. She is greatly looking forward to meeting you and to becoming a true member of the Mount Holyoke College community.
