As Associate Vice-President, Alumni Relations, Temi is responsible for the vision, planning, and implementation of alumni engagement strategy for Western University. Western Alumni comprise over 328,000 living alumni in 161 countries worldwide. The Alumni Relations team produces over 150 events annually including local and international events as well as virtual and live events at all levels of complexity and serving diverse constituent groups.

With over 15 years dedicated to advancement and alumni relations, Temi’s experience also includes alumni program strategy and inclusive community building, careers and virtual programming, change management and engagement metrics.

Dusti Cermak serves as the Executive Director of Events at the University of Iowa Center for Advancement where she has been for 25+ years, executing memorable events of every shape and size. In her role, Cermak leads a team of six dedicated professionals who produce engaging events for alumni, donors, fans, and friends across the country and world.

Cermak has a demonstrated history of working in the fundraising industry with diverse experience in event planning, stewardship, board governance, and nonprofit organizations. A strong operations professional, she holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Northern Iowa and is an active member of her community.

Born in Rushville, Indiana, and raised to be a Hoosier fan—but realizing that Purdue University offered one of the best Hospitality and Tourism Management schools in the country—Lance Connolly earned his Bachelor of Science, becoming a lifelong Boilermaker in 2009.

As the Assistant Vice President for Special Events with the Purdue for Life Foundation, Lance manages a team of 17 event professionals focused on development, engagement and signature university events. The Office of Special events portfolio exceeds 200 events annually, ranging from intimate dinners for 10 to campus wide events for thousands.

Known for his out-of-the-box ideas and keen design sense, Lance has placed Purdue in a spotlight all its own. In 2017–19 he took on additional responsibility as the Executive Producer for Purdue’s yearlong sesquicentennial: 150 Years of Giant Leaps. This additional role afforded him opportunities to produce international events and bring publicity to the University on a global level, including successfully orchestrating a Giant Leaps event in Mumbai, India. In 2020 when the Purdue for Life Foundation was created, Lance led the vision for a centralized Office of Special Events for all development and engagement events.

Lance serves on the Advisory Board for the Academic Event Professionals (AEP) and is frequently called upon to speak to the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), Association of Donor Relations Professionals (ADRP) and at national conferences such as The Special Event Conference.

Before joining the University Development Office in 2014 as the Director of Special Events, Lance, a former Varsity Glee Club Member, was Director of Donor Relations and Events with Purdue Musical Organizations holding various positions from 2009-2014, where he led performance tours to Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France along with countless domestic tours.

Lance currently resides in the Greater Lafayette community with his husband and two daughters. When not working around campus and beyond, Lance enjoys traveling to new places and entertaining friends and family. “Life is all about experiences” he says, and he intends to partake in as many as he can.

Scott has been in the entertainment and special event industry for 39 years. In his current role at Penn he leads a team of 15 special event professionals and support personnel producing approximately 200 international and domestic events annually. His team works with several development partners to produce virtual, hybrid and live events ranging from all-alumni large-scale productions for Alumni Weekend and Homecoming to all-constituent academic programs to smaller intimate high-end dinners and meetings for key senior staff and donors.

Scott began his production career after dropping out of the University of South Florida in his senior year to become a touring musician. After several years on the road, he took a position as an entertainment technician at a well-known theme park in Tampa. While advancing his career there, he completed his BA and then moved to San Antonio to become the entertainment director at a sister theme park. After writing and producing scores of shows for +6,000,000 guests annually, he moved to Waco, TX to become the Executive Director for Engagement Events at Baylor University. Athletics events were a major focus, with several Bowl Game and Final Four pre-game events for fans of the highly ranked sports teams. While at Baylor he earned his MBA.

Scott came to Penn in 2011. Over his 11 1/2 years at Penn in addition to the annual recurrent events his team has produced a major campaign conclusion tour, a campaign kick-off, yet another campaign conclusion tour, a presidential farewell, and a new president rollout tour.

Scott’s experience in entertainment influences his focus on creating Moments of Delight for the audience. He hopes that in his first talk at CASE he can create some memorable notes.