BUFFALO, NY – Liz Culliton Washo is the new director of alumni engagement. Charged with building a strategic and sustainable alumni program, Washo will reconnect the college’s graduates with alma mater through new career development, student recruitment, philanthropic and mission-driven initiatives.
Washo comes to Canisius from the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
In addition to having worked in admissions at Penn, Washo is the former associate director of alumni relations at the university’s renowned Wharton School of Finance. In this role, she helped grow reunion weekend attendance by as much as 18 percent through her strategic coordination of volunteer committees. Washo also worked closely with class ambassadors to conceive and implement activities and programs to sustain class identity and reinforce the concept of lifelong connections to Wharton.
While at the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Washo cultivated and created of Penn’s 40-member, inaugural school counselor advisory board in an effort to better inform the university’s partnership with critical members of the admissions process. She also pioneered the creation of an online learning series, using Penn’s Courser platform, specifically geared toward the counselor audience.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and the history of art and architecture from the University of Pittsburgh, and a master’s degree in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania. Washo has strong ties to Canisius as her father, two uncles and grandfather all attended the college.
Canisius is one of 28 Jesuit universities in the nation and the premier private university in Western New York.
-30-
