100 DEANS AND DEVELOPMENT often concerned about the state of the liberal arts in higher education, and as dean your role is to assure them that you are a strong proponent of the liberal arts. The point is that successful fundraising is built on these kinds of conversations, on which meaningful relationships are built. As dean, one of the most important things you can do is meet with alumni, listen to their stories, memories, and connect them with insights in the programs and faculty who are now teaching this generation of students. The result is a shared sense of the history of the institution and a shared personal experience of the importance of the institution to you and to them. It is important that as dean your presentation focuses generally on the fundamental role of the college of Arts and Sciences, and on making a case for a good fit between the donor of your college’s programmatic needs and priorities. This last point is critically important because, more than anything else, donors want to know that their contributions will make a difference to students, faculty, and/or the larger community. As dean, you are responsible for establishing priorities for your college of Arts and Sciences. Work with your departments and programs to identify the best development opportunities. This process can be challenging. In Chapter 3 Danilowicz and Hayes discuss how “Arts and Sciences is a complex college, and you will have alumni-rich and alumni-poor departments, both in numbers and in gift poten- tial.” Although they recommend engaging all units, this may prove difficult with limited development support personnel, and the lack of attention some departments and programs will give to development. Development strategies for Arts and Sciences are subject to the same realities and prospects that drive programmatic decisions about all college priorities. Within the broader contexts of each University, establishing over- arching priorities for a college of Arts and Sciences can be challenging because our colleges are large and intellectually diverse. There is no simple way to establish priorities but there must be some sense of fairness in their selection. One possibility is to prioritize by using disciplinary clusters: humanities, social sciences, natural and physical sciences/math,