In a season that celebrates “coming home” around the university with great pride and tradition, I am especially excited to ask you to join me in welcoming Tiffany Kyser, PhD’16, to the team as our new Executive Director of Outreach and Engagement. Her first day with the Association will be Monday, Dec. 4, 2023.

If you recognize Tiffany’s name from her days as an NCAA Division I athlete at IUPUI, you are not alone; she is, in fact, the only female student athlete at IUPUI to have her jersey, No. 44, retired. She went on to play professional basketball, in Europe and the U.S., and was inducted into the IUPUI Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.

But it’s what she’s done with her life beyond basketball that has prepared Tiffany to take on her new role at IUAA, where she will be responsible for designing strategies to increase alumni engagement and deepen loyalty among IU’s 770,000+ alumni, as we build toward the community of alumni, volunteers, donors, and leaders needed in IU’s third century.

Her trio of IU degrees includes a BS in Education, MA in English, and PhD in Urban Education Studies, with minors and concentrations that include creative writing, visual communication, design thinking, leadership, and equity in education management. Tiffany’s 20 years in K-12 and higher education include 10 years of technical assistance experience focused on systems change and optimization and nine years leading national engagement strategy portfolios. Her work has led to her twice being named a finalist for United Way of Central Indiana’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Advocate of the Year.

Punctuated by a personal loss that would forever impact her, Tiffany’s early educational path included attending four different elementary schools in her first five years of school and, later, graduating from the Culver Girls Academy of the Culver Academies, where she worked toward realizing her dream to play professional basketball.

Tiffany cut her teeth in outreach working with Girls, Inc. and spent several years substitute teaching and teaching English to junior high students in Indianapolis Public Schools and the Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township. She honed her skills in educational oversight and policy for the Mayor of Indianapolis, working in the Office of Education Innovation, and increased her leadership and system-design skills by guiding the national engagement strategy within the Great Lakes Equity Center for the past nine years. Equity in education, at every level, is both personal and professional for her.

Among her many accolades, Tiffany was named to the Indiana Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40 and the EBONY Power 100; appointed to the Stanley K. Lacy Executive Leadership Series and the IUPUI Next Generation 2.0 Leadership Program; received the IUPUI Maynard K. Hine Medal in 2022 and, most recently, the 2023 Dr. Charlie Nelms Award bestowed by the Neal Marshall Alumni Club. Additionally, she has served on the Board of Trustees of the Culver Educational Foundation, the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Effective Educator Development Technical Assistance Center Strategic Advisory Council, the IU Office for Women Advisory Council, and IUPUI School of Education Alumni Advisory Council.

“I’m deeply excited to be working with the tremendously talented IUAA staff, leadership, Board of Managers, volunteers, and alumni to refine and enhance pathways of connection, celebration, and conversation that remove barriers to engagement, deepen loyalty, and inspire generosity,” Tiffany told me for this announcement.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Kyser to the IUAA family.