The most interesting thing about Roanoke College’s new WorkAI Lab isn’t the AI. It’s the fact that the entire program is taught by alumni. Ryan King, Roanoke’s Chief of Staff and Innovation Officer, more or less stumbled into that, and then realized he’d found something.
Watch the full length version (58 mins) on YouTube.
When King’s team needed instructors, they didn’t hire consultants. They went to their VP for advancement, Nate Stewart, and asked which alumni were doing this work for real. The list included the head of AI solutions for the federal government at Microsoft and a founder building on agentic AI. They said yes immediately, and one of them hadn’t set foot on campus in over a decade. It’s a way to engage exactly the alumni who are hardest to reach, the busy, accomplished ones a reunion invite never lands with.
What I appreciated is how King thinks about the college’s job. He’s blunt that higher ed has been “reactive as opposed to proactive and slow to embrace change,” and he treats Roanoke’s small size as the advantage rather than the handicap.
Most college students today are adults, not eighteen-year-olds, and 43 million Americans have some college and no credential. King wants Roanoke to be their partner for lifelong learning, not just for four years. And the vehicle for that turns out to double as one of the sharpest alumni engagement plays I’ve seen in a while: ask your most accomplished graduates not for money, but to come back and teach.
Big Themes This Week
The most reachable version of an alum may be a teacher, not a donor. Roanoke’s WorkAI Lab is taught entirely by alumni, including some who hadn’t been back in a decade.
Small can be an advantage. Roanoke went from a late-night idea to a launched program in weeks, and from a community need to a new degree in under a year.
The student of the future is often an adult. With 43 million Americans holding some college and no credential, lifelong learning is the opportunity, not the alternative.
Team Discussion Questions
Which of our accomplished alumni would say yes if we asked them to teach or mentor rather than give?
Where is our size or structure slowing us down, and where could it actually let us move faster?
Are we built to serve alumni as lifelong learners, or only as graduates and donors?
