Four Questions for Chris Bryant

A senior software engineer at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Chris Bryant has been president of the Caltech Alumni Association since 2018. Recently, Bryant oversaw a significant change to the Alumni Association structure whereby all Caltech alums are now members of the CAA; previously membership dues were required. Caltech magazine caught up with Bryant to talk about this change and what he hopes to accomplish during the last few months of his term, which comes to an end in June 2020.

How did this recent change come about?

The push to make every alum automatically a member of the Alumni Association had been in the works for more than a decade. The CAA was funded by dues, so the majority of our program resources came from members. But, even though our events were open to all alumni, we knew that having dues as part of membership was creating a barrier to people participating, and it was a lot of work to solicit membership

to fund our programs. When President Rosenbaum came to Caltech, he put the issue of alumni engagement front and center and, with Brian Lee (then vice president for Advancement and Alumni Relations), partnered with us to create a more permanent funding model that didn’t require dues.

What do you see as the main benefits?

With the dues barrier removed and dramatically increased membership, we expect alumni to feel the benefit of a stronger, more engaged network. Whether it’s via returning to campus, connecting at regional events, or participating in online virtual programs, we expect to see higher engagement levels and more value to alumni from those connections.

What do you find most rewarding about working with Caltech alums?

Caltech students and alumni are some of the most collaborative people I’ve interacted with through my life and career. Working with fellow alumni as CAA president has been extremely rewarding because of that culture of collaboration.

What are some goals you have for the Alumni Association?

As long as I’ve been a part of the board, there has been a consistent desire to have the caliber and strength of alumni programming and engagement be on par with the overall caliber of the Institute in all the things it does. We aim for the equivalent groundbreaking, prizewinning, societally advancing impact in alumni relations and alumni engagement that Caltech has achieved in science and engineering. It is definitely a journey and one that all of the presidents I’ve been fortunate to work with have each contributed their best efforts to.