Vu72, I refused to go, due to the university ghosting me on their follow-up communication on how our Valpo Club of DFW could assist in driving attendance. It wasn't the lack of trying to leverage our prior event network, but simply that their rep responded with a request to connect, and then ghosted me on my 3 follow-up attempts to connect. Sad to see that only 15 people attended, but point proven that they could have used our help, as we had 40-50+ at each of the prior VU President stops in DFW.
Thats sad and shocking to hear that the Dallas event had only 15. And even more shocking is the inexcusable staff work with the alumni volunteers. Talk about self-defeating behavior.
Thank you to Vu84v2 for pointing out tha the MAY PADILLA events are publicized on the VU website for Milwaukee and Minneapolis. They don't show up when you simply scroll down. You have to go back to the top and choose, "ALL EVENTS", even an April one.
Thankfully both the MN and WI events say, "Join President Jose Padilla..........." I look forward to "joining him" when he comes to Milwaukee. But I would also like chair-elect Jon Steinbecher to come to Milwaukee now that a search is in process.
We are the strongest Valpo alumni group in the country right now, (".....and maybe the best ever" -D. Trump.)
Chicago has more alumni, but we think Milwaukee is more active.
Per the VU alumni website Saint Louis on March 6 was part of the "Valpo Alumni Tour." But it doesn't mention any spokespeople so who spoke? Wonder how many attended?
At least Padilla is planned to be at the Valpo Tour in Milwaukee and the Twin Cities. Maybe Saint Louis scheduling of a Padilla forum vs the MVC game slots made it unworkable.
Vu72, I refused to go, due to the university ghosting me on their follow-up communication on how our Valpo Club of DFW could assist in driving attendance. It wasn't the lack of trying to leverage our prior event network, but simply that their rep responded with a request to connect, and then ghosted me on my 3 follow-up attempts to connect. Sad to see that only 15 people attended, but point proven that they could have used our help, as we had 40-50+ at each of the prior VU President stops in DFW.
ValpoTX, do you in fact know that the person who ghosted you is still with the uni? I think you've mentioned this DFW experience a couple times and I can't remember if it was during/close to all the 2020 layoffs or a subsequent round?
At any rate, it's terrible nobody got back to you no matter what, and especially if they are actually still staff!
But I think there's a pretty decent chance they could have been laid off or left the uni. I have no specific reason to think that, except that there's been so many hundreds of staff laid off these last 5 years and so many abrupt departures -- and whereas faculty emails are generally live for a couple months after they leave, I think the staff emails go defunct pretty much immediately. So if that person was cut or left, it's possible they immediately lost access to those messages-in-progress between you, and it's not like anybody else in the office would have had access either. VU's email system has for a long time been pretty dumb in that defunct accounts didn't generate a 'undelivered' message, so you could have been sending your follow-ups into the void where nobody would ever receive them but you also wouldn't have gotten a kick-back that they weren't received (maybe they have fixed this now, but it was an issue for a while); and a lot of people who have left are actually still on variously un-updated web pages since nobody on campus seems to know how to actually remove departed faculty/staff profiles either. There is really no way to know who has been raptured or whose email accounts have gone defunct even if you're on campus, unless you hear it thru the verbal grapevine or get social media confirmation that they're employed somewhere else.
Anyways, just wondering if that's a possibility, since if so, perhaps it is hasty to give up on the entire alumni office..... It could be just dumb in the way I'm describing above, and not necessarily a malicious 'ghosting.'
It's a good question, but this was a few months ago, when the visit to DFW was first announced. They gave me their contact information and I sent emails, which did not kick back with any undeliverable messages. We helped with all prior VU staff visits to the area over the last 10 years and had good attendance for an area that is not a large alumni pool, so it was odd that they responded to my initial outreach, but received no reply on each subsequent message to assist.
