April Cole has been at Rice University since fall 2018 and currently serves as the director of alumni programs. Her areas of responsibility and team management include student engagement, online mentoring, digital education, lifelong learning, Traveling Owls, and young alumni programs, in addition to signature events such as Homecoming & Reunion and Families Weekend. Prior to Rice, April spent six years in Silicon Valley as the associate director of alumni & community engagement at San Jose State University, where she established the institution’s first student & alumni engagement program, alumni mentorship program, and student scholar program. April also led Indiana University Bloomington's undergraduate scholarship-eligible student recruitment for the Office of Enrollment Management and spent six years directing outreach and development at Florida Campus Compact in Tallahassee, a higher education non-profit that collaborated with more than fifty college and university presidents to establish service learning, civic engagement, and social responsibility on their respective campuses.

April holds a bachelor’s in social work and a master’s in higher education with an emphasis in student affairs from Florida State University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies Program at the University of Houston.