Bates names new vice president for development and alumni affairs

Victoria M. Devlin is the new vice president for development and alumni affairs at Bates, President Donald W. Harward announced.

“We are exceedingly pleased with Ms. Devlin’s appointment. She is a leader in her field, and we look forward to the vision and talents she brings to the college,” Harward said. “Her selection positions Bates to build upon its significant fund-raising successes of the last several years.”

Prior to her arrival at Bates last month, Devlin served as vice president for development and marketing at WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, where she was responsible for all development activities, including annual fund and membership, major gifts, auction, local and national corporate as well as local and national foundation activities for the nation’s largest public broadcaster.

An accomplished manager and development officer with responsibility for a 120-person staff, at WGBH she initiated breakthrough development programs and built a major gifts program in an organization that had relied heavily on annual giving and corporate sponsorship. Before going to Boston, Devlin held a similar position as senior vice president for development and marketing at WETA in Washington, D.C.

A Holy Names College graduate, Devlin completed graduate studies in comparative literature and secondary education at the University of California, Berkeley.

Vice president for Women in Development of Boston, Devlin has served on the Founders’ Board, The Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health, Washington, D.C.; and on the board of directors for Woods Hole Foundation, Woods Hole, Mass.

Overseeing a 28-person development and alumni affairs staff at Bates, Devlin will plan and direct the college’s initiatives in the areas of annual, capital and endowment fundraising, as well as alumni programming for 15,600 Bates graduates worldwide.

Annually, Bates College raises in excess of $10 million from nearly 11,000 donors, including alumni, parents, friends, corporations and foundations. In 1996, Bates concluded a $59.3-million fund-raising campaign, which helped push the permanent endowment to $150 million, a total that has tripled in less than a decade. Ongoing fund-raising intiatives at Bates include securing support for the new, $18-million academic building of 91,000 square feet, scheduled for fall 1999 completion.