University of Wyoming (UW) Global Engagement Fellow Dilnoza Khasilova has received recognition for her international outreach efforts to connect with alumni worldwide. This effort is part of the WyoGlobal Alumni initiative, in which Khasilova serves as a liaison to the UW Alumni Association. She was named to Almabase 50 Under 50 list, powered by Blackbaud Corporation, which recognizes individuals nationwide for their work in alumni relations and advancement. Almabase is an alumni management software for schools and universities.
“One of the experts in the field, she has been our guest speaker and she was impressed just with the role that University of Wyoming created for this position and the activities we have done with no data at all [on foreign alumni] …International alumni advancement is a growing field. It's now coming up,” she said.
Khasilova is originally from Uzbekistan and received a master’s degree and Ph.D. from UW in education-related fields. As part of her coursework, she launched a statewide alumni project that expanded in scope after she graduated with her Ph.D.
“I established like [an] alumni project, that is a community service project that is offered to the campus in our state. So then, when I developed this project, when I graduated in 2020, during COVID, this opportunity came up as a project for me to work specifically with international [alumni],” she said. “It's not only international alumni, we're talking also about study abroad alumni [in addition to] exchange faculty or students, alumni who are coming for six months or for a year.”
A pilot study was conducted when Khasilova was working at UW’s English Language Center three years ago.
“We started contacting our international English language learners alumni to…stay in touch with them,” she said. “Once that project [kept] going, we thought that with me bringing in that international alumni [is] a passion and my projects that I've done on campus, we wanted to establish a connecti[on] to [the] alumni association.”
WyoGlobal officially launched in 2021. It establishes relationships with overseas alumni but this required raising awareness of the WyoGlobal initiative as well as how to support the university and its traditions. The initiative has led to many study abroad and international alumni connecting with UW Alumni officials.
There are currently 10 formal alumni ambassadors and two informal ones that keep in touch with alumni worldwide. Khasilova and UW are seeking to grow the WyoGlobal initiative in future years. Currently, there are around 588 alumni that ambassadors have been in contact with via LinkedIn and in establishing 12 alumni networks, including ambassadors from different regions of the world.
The WyoGlobal Alumni initiative was showcased at NAFSA, an association of international educators, in Washington, D.C. and contributed to the creation of NAFSA’s new Member Interest Group: International Alumni Advancement.
In addition to the WyoGlobal initiative, Khasilova also organized the first Alumni Study Tour, securing funding, hosting training workshops, and developing a successful alumni project. These foreign ambassadors also act as coordinators of alumni chapters in their home countries and organize gatherings with other UW alumni. They also act as contacts to the U.S. embassies in their respective countries when necessary as well as meeting UW delegations for yearly alumni dinners.
