The NAA’s New Leader

For Lindsay Vahl Dean, the opportunity to shape how Northwestern interacts with its global alumni community was too good to pass up. 

“I am thrilled by the chance to create spaces where alumni can deepen their experiences with the University and one another,” says Vahl Dean, who became assistant vice president of alumni engagement and executive director of the Northwestern Alumni Association (NAA) in July after a national search. She had served as interim director since October 2023. “Together, with our incredibly talented team, dedicated alumni volunteers and campus partners, we will reach more alumni and embrace all the ways they share their Purple Pride.” 

The NAA serves a global community of 260,000 alumni through events, programs and clubs that help spark lifelong growth and connections with fellow alumni and the University. Vahl Dean has been instrumental in reshaping the organization to better meet the social, professional and intellectual needs of alums everywhere.  

“Meaningful engagement is about meeting alumni where they are,” Vahl Dean says. “We want to help them find and support their passions and interests with Northwestern. We also want to reestablish our relationships with those who have been less connected and introduce opportunities for them to get involved in ways they deem important.” 

Vahl Dean has advanced these efforts through her leadership of an NAA team that has established and nurtured relationships with alumni volunteer leaders; expanded popular programming such as Northwestern Connects, a global networking night; and launched a new NAA marketing campaign that broadens outreach to all alumni and highlights the organization’s inclusive and welcoming environment. She also helped develop the inaugural NAA Town Hall and Annual Meeting, a virtual event held last August during which alumni connected with University leaders and elected new members of the NAA Board. The next town hall will take place in late summer 2025. 

Vahl Dean earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and completed significant coursework toward a doctorate in higher education administration at Illinois State University, where she also spent more than a decade working in various alumni leadership positions — in part because of how her own college experience shaped her. 

“I am a first-generation college graduate,” Vahl Dean says. “Going to college opened so many opportunities for me, so I’m still really involved with my alma mater. I feel I have an obligation to give back.” Likewise, “Northwestern’s alumni community has an important role in supporting the University’s mission and raising its profile around the world.” 

In her new position, Vahl Dean is excited to learn what alumni want from the NAA and to continue building relationships within the Northwestern community. 

“I need to be a really good listener — one who is caring and forthright,” she says. “The relationship between the NAA and the alumni community is a two-way street. We can do our best to provide all alumni with a path to broadening their relationship with their alma mater.”