On this episode of the RAISE podcast, Brent catches up with Julie Morgan Hooper, Vice Chancellor for University Development and Alumni Relations at the University of California, Berkeley. Julie explains to our audience how the debate team at her Dallas, Texas highschool led her to consider Boston University for College. She reflects on the scholarship funds that made her BU undergraduate degree possible, and how at the time, she thought of the Scholarship as not much more than a helpful line item on her semester bill. Julie and Brent talk about the importance of imparting a culture of philanthropy while students are still students; how she began her career working for a family-owned textile company that often landed her brokering new vendor relationships in India; her decision to complete a Master’s in Historic Preservation at the University of Georgia; and her experience running small nonprofits in Texas before she transitioned to working in higher ed. At UC Berkeley, Julie currently manages a team of over 250 and a budget of over $60MM. It’s a big role with lots of responsibility, and she’s thriving in it thanks to the varied experiences she collected in her life and career along the way.
Here are some highlights from the episode…
Reflecting on her own experience as a scholarship recipient at BU, Julie asks herself and the podcast audience, “How can we make a Scholarship more than just a line item to an 18-year-old college student?”
Julie began her career working at Crowe Resources International, a Texas-based, family-owned textile company. She worked her way up in the company and spent a lot of time developing the company’s international partnerships in India. During her time in India, she witnessed the deep history and spirituality of the country, some of its extreme poverty, the beginning of the tech boom in Bangalore, and the women who were paving their own ways in the textile industry and essentially forming the middle class.
Julie met her husband after she had just quit her job, moved to Austin, and didn’t yet have any set plans about her future job or course of study. They have been married for 25 years.
Before making her entrance on the higher ed advancement stage, Julie served as the Executive Director for a number of small non-profits in the Texas area: the Heritage Society of Austin, the Colorado River Foundation, and Safe Place. At these smaller organizations, she taught her teams how to develop the muscle of asking for individual major gifts.
Julie reflects on the continued utility of Zoom and virtual meetings in discovering new prospects, diversifying the “orchestra” of campus partners that we’re able to bring into conversations with donors, and how the approach to “low ROI” donor visits will likely be changed forever.
Julie acknowledges that the last year’s surge in increasing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Belonging at our institutions is not just about our advancement teams or about improving the experience of underrepresented students in higher education. It’s about improving our world.
Want to work with Julie? UC Berkeley is hiring! Connect with Julie on LinkedIn or via email at julie.hooper@berkeley.edu.
We dedicate this episode of the RAISE podcast to Julie’s father. We know he would be so proud of the huge amount of respect she has earned from her mentors, mentees, colleagues, friends, and admirers in the advancement world.
