Paula Simmonds Appointed Director of Institutional Advancement for Undergraduate Alumni Affairs
Sep 6, 2006 By: yunews
Sep 6, 2006 -- Paula L. Simmonds joins Yeshiva University as director of institutional advancement for undergraduate alumni affairs. Ms. Simmonds will be responsible for creating a comprehensive program that will broaden alumni’s involvement in the university and enable them to assume a greater role in securing its financial viability and future.
Under her leadership, YU’s Office of Alumni Affairs will embark upon many new activities which will enable alumni to strengthen their relationship to YU, connect with other alumni here and in Israel, and become acquainted with initiatives being implemented under the administration of YU President Richard Joel.
“I will work closely with alumni who serve in leadership positions in their communities as well as alumni members of the boards of Yeshiva College, Stern College, and Sy Syms School of Business,” said Ms. Simmonds, a resident of Spring Valley, NY. “I will also actively recruit graduates to take the lead in alumni programs and initiatives at their alma mater.”
Ms. Simmonds was most recently executive director of the 1654 Society, an organization founded to preserve the history of the first American Jewish community, where she was responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive fundraising plan, creating programs to restore Congregation Shearith Israel’s historic archives and cemeteries, and enhancing the organization’s public profile.
Before that, she directed marketing and development at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). There she was responsible for increasing and diversifying the agency’s sources of revenue and visibility, as well as playing a key role in strategic planning and board development. Ms. Simmonds was the source for the October 2003 groundbreaking JTA investigative series on the Ford Foundation, which gained national media coverage in the Wall Street Journal, New York Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, National Post of Canada and the national Anglo-Jewish Press corps.
Before joining the not-for-profit world, she spent 12 years in the corporate arena, where she specialized in cable TV, Internet and telecommunications marketing and development, working with such clients as USA Networks, Discovery Channel, BET, Galavision (the number one Hispanic cable network), SNET, HBO, Showtime and Time Warner Cable.
A graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Ms. Simmonds is a contributing editor for the Five Towns Jewish Times in Lawrence, New York. She is married to Isaac Bikel, with whom she shares seven children and eight grandchildren.
We invite alumni to contact Paula Simmonds by calling her at 212-960-5422, sending an email to Simmonds@yu.edu, or by writing to her at Yeshiva University, 2495 Amsterdam Ave., Belfer Hall 717, New York, NY 10033.