58 DEANS AND DEVELOPMENT notice and have time windows to meet with individuals not in the devel- opment officer’s main portfolio. If provided by your development officer, the assistant can keep track of the dean’s action-items (e.g. have thank you letters for visits or gifts been written?); this keeps your development officer from spending time checking up on his or her over-committed and often-forgetful dean. An administrative assistant hired by the Foundation will have a job description much more focused towards development activities. Foun- dation-funded assistants will be involved with more prospect research, will help or even lead on event planning involving donors, and main- tain communication with members of external college boards. In the absence of such an assistant from the Foundation, event planning and communication with the board will need to be delegated, to either your administrative assistant (which could involve a change in job descrip- tion) or additional clerical staff in your office. Do not let your develop- ment officer become bogged down with clerical tasks. Conversely, an administrative assistant should never take on a role suited for a development officer, such as making cold calls to set up appointments for the officer or for you. Your administrative assistant has not been trained to be effective in this role, and is unlikely to enjoy it. The assistant’s morale suffers, as does the chance of securing a successful visit. (BSD) I asked a former development officer to set up a cold call dinner with four or five alumni when I would have a free evening at a conference. Despite several months of advanced notice, no dinner materialized. The problem? While we had a long-list of very successful alums in the city, the develop- ment officer had assigned the cold call responsibilities to the administrative assistant. While the assistant honestly (and repeatedly) tried, no one would commit to dinner. Would you react any differently to such a phone call or letter? Department Chairs and Assistant/Associate Deans Alumni engagement and referrals are the top two functions for the college’s other administrative members. As pointed out in earlier