Meet Your President
A Chat with ’24-’25 Alumni Council President Cheryl Shepard ’90
Cheryl Shepard may hail from a small town in Michigan hundreds of miles away from Hanover, but from the moment she stepped foot on campus, it felt like home.
“Going to Dartmouth was kind of a big deal, and at the time, it was still a fairly regional school. It felt very New England, and I’d never been to New England. I felt a little like, ‘Oh boy, I am really walking into a completely strange place.’ And yet immediately, I felt welcomed here.”
Her First-Year Trip consisted of an eclectic group from the farthest points of the country, and the trials and tribulations of the journey—finding edible substitutes for an ominous “sticky stew” recipe, (failed) attempts at cow-tipping, and the general outdoorsiness required for backpacking—bonded her to her new home and new community instantly.
She was then, and still remains, struck by the diversity, the power, and the passion of the Dartmouth community. It was that love for the people around her and comforting likeness to herself in spirit that kept her involved for years to come.
Cheryl has done it all, dabbling in a huge swath of alumni leadership roles and quickly ascending the ranks. Her post-grad involvement began with her fifth-year reunion and took off from there. She became president of her class for the next five-year term, then vice president. After a brief hiatus to have her two children, she returned, full-speed ahead, as co-president of the Class of 1990, a role she’s happily held for the past nine years. In that time, she also served on the Dartmouth College Fund Committee from 2018-2022, and, somewhere along the way, secured a nomination to become part of the Alumni Council as the Class President’s Association representative. Three simultaneous roles proved not enough—she moved on from the CPA to the Alumni Liaison Committee (ALC) and quickly distinguished herself, earning her the nomination of Alumni Council president.
She stepped down from co-president of the class when she assumed her Alumni Council presidency, recognizing the uniquely demanding and important role in front of her. “I really believe in the mission that we are there not only to collect and represent sentiment from the alumni, but to be that funnel in which information from Dartmouth can come back into the alumni community. That’s a really special thing Dartmouth has.”
The Task at Hand
The trajectory of the Alumni Council president is quite scripted. A candidate spends one year as president-elect, learning the ropes, one year in the actual leadership role, and then moves on to serve as chair of the ALC.
In her time shadowing Alex Barnett ’07 during her tenure, Cheryl learned a lot—and she also took note of exactly what she wanted to prioritize when her time came.
“We’re refining something my predecessor started that I think is necessary for Alumni Council—creating more connection for our counselors in as many ways as possible.”
Cheryl Shepard ’90,
24-’25 Alumni Council President
Cheryl's Favorites
- Favorite class: English 9 Essay Writing, Terry Osborne
- Favorite café on Main Street: Molly’s
- First place she visits when she returns to campus: Someplace in Baker! Sanborn House, the stacks…
- Favorite class: English 9 Essay Writing, Terry Osborne
- Favorite café on Main Street: Molly’s
- First place she visits when she returns to campus: Someplace in Baker! Sanborn House, the stacks…
Historically, the Alumni Council meets twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. The meetings consist of planned sessions, of course, where the committees can gather to advance their work, but also allows councilors the chance to get to know each other. That all became more difficult when COVID-19 hit, and the biannual meetings went remote. “So much happens in those casual social spaces outside [of session],” Cheryl explained. So, even when only the fall sessions returned in person, the Alumni Council leadership knew something had to be done to compensate for that lost social time.
Thus, the monthly “meetups” were born.
Every month, Alumni Councilors have the opportunity to meet-up virtually for a presentation or discussion of a particular issue and socialize with their councilors. Over Zoom, friendships can be made, ideas can be brainstormed, and new councilors can be properly welcomed and introduced to their fellow groups—a necessary step when one-third of the participants are new each year.
There have been a few iterations of the “meetup.” It started off as a chance to ask leadership questions, then an unstructured social time, but Cheryl is pleased with where they’ve landed—a time that is a bit more structured, allowing not only for productivity but for personal connection as conversation naturally progresses. And she’s already introduced even more opportunities to welcome the new members and connect with the existing ones.
“Not only do we have an orientation committee in the summer, but we’ve added a new counselor meet-and-greet before the formal session in the fall,” Shepard says. “So, the executive committee, all the heads of the subcommittees on Alumni Council, myself, and my president-elect Bruce Danzinger ’83 P’22, were there to greet them and give them a nice, warm handoff into that meeting. And afterwards, we set the agenda for the next meetup with an eye to a new councilor debrief, to let them ask all of their unanswered questions. We’re really trying to make the space very comfortable so they can be as effective as possible.”
A Labor of Love
It’s the sense of community that really keeps Cheryl going. “Everyone just really wants, at the end of the day, to have the best college and the best alumni community possible—and they’re all trying to get there. It’s really exciting to try to harness and lead that into something that makes some sense and works for everybody.”
And she’s excited to continue doing just that—all the while raising her two children with her husband, a Dartmouth ’89, in Winchester, MA, and working full-time in marketing and communication at Atrius Health, in a career she attributes to the power of the Dartmouth liberal arts education.
At the end of the day, she considers herself honored to serve the unparalleled Dartmouth community, in gratitude for all it has afforded her.
“The people you work with at Dartmouth are smart, passionate, curious, successful, welcoming—just so many positive adjectives can be used—and to be elected to be president of this group is a very, very humbling experience for me.”