Parks Smith
Senior Director, Marketing Strategy, Development and Alumni Relations, Virginia Commonwealth University
Parks has spent over 10 years working in higher education including experience with strategic enrollment management, alumni relations, development, and career services. His driving passion in his current work is building relationships and finding opportunities to get alumni involved with their alma mater in the most meaningful way possible.
He currently serves as the Director of Strategic Operations in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Office of Alumni Relations. He is primarily charged with serving as the primary conduit between alumni relations and VCU programs, schools, and units that intersects with alumni in order to increase effectiveness and economies of scale. This includes work in developing volunteer strategies and infrastructure for VCU’s 200,000 alumni, creating and maintaining the University’s alumni engagement metrics system, and developing systems to support alumni recruitment, training, development, and stewardship across the university.
Parks attended Longwood University where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in organizational and strategic communication in 2008. He served as Director of Alumni Relations for alma mater prior to joining the team at VCU. Before returning to his alma mater, he spent five years at Royall & Company, now EAB, helping colleges and universities across the country achieve their strategic enrollment goals.