Meet Melissa Regan

Melissa Bronzino Regan has joined the Alumni and Development Office as the Director of Engagement. Melissa brings to the team 25 years of experience working with alumni at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, through roles in development, career services, and alumni relations. As Associate Director of Alumni Relations, Melissa significantly increased membership and participation in the Trinity Entrepreneurial Network and the Women’s Leadership Council.

At The Frederick Gunn School, Melissa is developing strategy focused on increasing alumni and parent engagement, including new programming, volunteer opportunities, events, targeted communications, and donor relations. She is working with campus community members to connect alumni and parents with current students and faculty in meaningful ways, both on and off campus.

Tell us about your work with the Trinity Entrepreneurial Network. It was a brand new initiative, right at the end of the pandemic. Trinity had created a Center for Entrepreneurship, and I put together a series of programs. We started with a VIP panel with some of our most noted alumni entrepreneurs, and then we started a series of monthly alumni roundtables that focused on topics such as: How did you get started as an entrepreneur? How do you bring a product to market? How do you build a team? What are the best and most effective uses of social media? Every month we held a virtual program and we had anywhere from 30-75 people on those calls. These virtual roundtables were very successful.

The Alumni & Development Office has introduced several new programs over the past year, including the Live Like Abigail event. Are there other new programming initiatives you can tell us about?

We’re going to be focusing on networking events. We’re excited to get back on the road to be able to put alumni together and help them in their careers, wherever they might be. We still have the virtual world. It doesn’t matter where you are, we can still reach you and we can still involve you in opportunities to connect with others. We hope to schedule some of these events in the fall. Live Like Abigail was the start, and that was something that was very appealing, given my work with the Women’s Leadership Council at Trinity. It was programming by women, for women. We did anywhere from 30-40 events a year. I’m excited to bring some of those programmatic ideas to Gunn.

Tell us about the work that you are doing and what you find most rewarding in your interactions with Gunn parents and alumni. Right now my work is really getting to know the school and its people. I am working closely with the members of the Alumni & Development Office. We’re starting to do some outreach to young alumni and put together networking opportunities for them. Going out and meeting alumni is my top priority right now. I want to hear about people’s experiences here at Gunn. I also think having Emily Raudenbush Gum as the new Head of School is a wonderful thing for us to talk about when we go out and meet people.

It was inspiring to see the community engage in our #GUNNSPIRED campaign. Why do you believe that engagement, whether as a parent, alumna or alumnus, or volunteer, is important?

It keeps you connected to the school. It also is an opportunity to connect with each other as we think about the kinds of programs we want to offer. We want to hear from parents and alumni why their experience here was important, and what they want to see going forward. Engagement helps current students, whether it’s in the form of a financial gift, as in #GUNNSPIRED, or helping students with questions about college, or later on, helping them with the job search. All of those things help keep the community connected.

What are you excited about accomplishing in the next year here?

I’m really excited to meet as many people in the community as I can — students, parents, and alumni. I was already able to connect a group of alumni with the Gunn Scholars this year. Every person I contacted was willing to help. It’s really exciting when people respond so positively.