Political Science Alumni Advisory Board Projects 

Career Readiness Network 

In spring 2025, we launched a brand-new course — Professional Development in Political Science — to help our students get career ready. Outside of the curriculum, the Alumni Advisory Board provides a career-ready presentation every time they come to campus for the Board Meeting. Together we started the “What’s it like to be a (fill in the blank: policy analyst, attorney, campaign manager, city council member...)” interactive talk series for students to gain an inside scope from professionals in a variety of career paths such as business, media, politics and policy that they aspire to undertake. Kayvan Chinichian and Jody Skenderian spearheaded this direction of work.

Fundraising 

The Alumni Advisory Board has always been the driving force behind POLS’ fundraising efforts, but this year, they upped their game. Plans were made, strategies were discussed and funds were donated! Under the leadership of Bryan Corcoran, the Alumni Advisory Board operates with a yearly production calendar and action plan for planning and carrying out fundraising projects.  Thanks to the hard work put in by the board and the department in the past two decades, POLS is among the top fundraisers in the College of Liberal Arts. In addition to a dozen or so scholarships available to students, we recently established the Political Science Quasi-Endowment of $90,000. Drawing funds from the endowment’s income and POLS discretionary funds, we were able to make the commitment of providing up to 20 POLS Learn by Doing grants to enhance POLS students’ “Uniquely Cal Poly” educational experiences.

Alumni Engagement on Linkedin 

In the past few months, the board has worked with the department to use POLS’ LinkedIn site as a more proactive tool to engage our alumni and students. We currently have 266 members and counting. During the 2025 Poly Gives Weekend, Jody Skenderian initiated a project to connect with more political science alumni on LinkedIn, Zoom or by phone to strengthen our connections. Sophia Perkins, a fourth-year political science student, recently joined our team as a student assistant to maintain a more vigorous, present and updated LinkedIn page. 

The City Networks 

Wouldn’t it be nice if POLS students heading to D.C. for an internship or a job interview in Sacramento could meet with POLS alums who would guide them, support them and, when possible, open the door for them? Such is the aspiration behind our “City Networks” project. In the past couple of years, through building up pre-existing local networks among Cal Poly POLS alumni, we have strengthened and enlivened our alumni communities in major political hubs in the U.S. Hopefully, we can expand in other parts of the world soon!  Kayvan Chinichian started the very first City Network in D.C. Lisa Travis is working to get the Sacramento Network underway.

Alumni Discovery Program 

During our fall 2024 board meeting, Jason Colombini proposed that we should establish an alumni discovery program to connect with alumni who would like to engage the department more closely. Emulating the university-level alumni discovery program (which Jason served as a manager a few years ago), this program serves two goals at once. The first is to reach out to alumni members who welcome a closer connection with the department. The second is to provide our current students an opportunity to find mentors and advisors among our alumni. We are planning to launch this program in summer 2026.

The Public Policy Institute Initiative 

Cal Poly vibrates with science and technology; people and businesses from all over the county come to Cal Poly in seek of knowledge and expertise. However, as soon as science and technology interact with human society, they would need a policy arm. Our department is where they would find knowledge and expertise on public policy. A couple of years ago, the idea of setting up a “Public Policy Institute” emerged out of a brainstorm session of Bryan Corcoran and Ning Zhang and gained the immediate support of the MPP Committee. POLS faculty Christopher Nelson has recently become another champion for this project. With active coalition-building, envisioning and blueprinting, we are rolling forward.