Alumni Blog

With just a few weeks left until the close of The Campaign for the Uncommon Good, Seattle University’s largest comprehensive campaign ever, we are excited to share that we have raised over $293 million, far surpassing our $275 million goal. Seattle U alumni have played a crucial role—46 percent of all donors to the campaign are alumni.

The Alumni Campaign Task Force was charged with engaging alumni in the campaign, not only through giving, but through volunteerism, event attendance and more. Led by task force co-chairs Chris Canlas, ’00, and Rob Nielsen, ’07, the task force made significant contributions including creating systems that helped the university to more easily bring alumni into the life of the university.

When the campaign went public in 2019, they proactively invited alumni into programs like Seattle U Gives, our annual day of giving, and Our Moment for Mission: The President’s Challenge (OMFM). Through OMFM, President Stephen Sundborg, S.J., challenged 10,000 alumni to connect, volunteer and give to the university by June 30, 2021. With data still coming in, 9,397 alumni have answered the call, surpassing our previous high by 34 percent.

Both Rob and Chris are excited about the success of the task force and Seattle University Alumni Association in engaging more alumni than ever before—as well as the diversity and quality of programs available for our alumni. “I could not have imagined the great ways that our alumni relations would improve since I joined the task force in 2015. We have more ways to get involved than we ever had and we can meet more alumni ‘where they’re at’ to find opportunities to participate and give back to SU,” shared Rob.

Chris agreed, noting that, “We often feel that our alma mater only reaches out when they are engaged in fundraising. However, in the past few years, Seattle U has new found ways to involve its alumni population in more meaningful and relational ways, and less transactional.”

As they look forward to the future of Seattle U, Chris and Rob invite alumni to come back to campus, get involved and put Seattle U Gives on your calendar (February 24, 2022). “Participate!” invites Rob. “Your alma mater wants to better serve and connect with you and would love to find a way to put your skills, talents, and expertise to better use through service.”

One way to connect soon is to celebrate the successful close of the campaign by viewing the campaign feature on Tuesday, June 29. Visit the campaign website on June 29 for more details.

When Joe Schultz, ’06, saw a Renton High School track coach’s Facebook post seeking a room to rent for an international high school student in need, he didn’t hesitate to respond.

“My undergrad experience at Seattle U inspired me to share my home,” Schultz explains. “I am from a culturally homogenous town in Montana and SU opened my eyes to a broader world of people, places and ideas, what we should expect of ourselves and of society. I wanted to help and my wife, Vanessa, and I had an extra room.”

The student, Hameed Makttoof, ’20, had escaped war-ravaged Sadr City, Iraq, and landed in Seattle via United Nations guaranteed safe passage. At the time he was 16-years-old, alone, illiterate and unable to speak English. A social services organization placed him in a group home with other youth in the foster care system and enrolled him at Renton High School as a freshman. He took three English Language Learner (ELL) courses each day and joined the cross country and track teams. He was a talented runner.

A year later, a frightening racist encounter with a group home employee drove him to seek new living accommodations. Makttoof moved in with Joe and Vanessa, both special education teachers at Chief Sealth International High School, as an18-year-old sophomore.

“We weren’t sure what our relationship would be—parental or landlord/tenant,” Joe says. But Hameed quickly became part of our family, and Vanessa and I became like an older sister and brother to him.”

The Schultz’s transferred Makttoof to Chief Sealth High School, which has a strong ELL program and one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse student bodies in Washington State. Joe and Vanessa took turns tutoring Makttoof at home, often one cooking dinner while the other worked with him. “Education was a beacon to Hameed, and he worked harder than anyone I’d ever met,” Joe says. In 2016, Makttoof graduated high school.

He enrolled at Central Washington University on a track scholarship, but the demands of college athletics and a heavy academic schedule became overwhelming, and his grades began to spiral downward. Always supportive, Joe told Makttoof about a Seattle U program he’d learned of called Fostering Scholars.

“I had read about the program in The Seattle Times and Seattle U publications,” he says. “Fostering Scholars appeared to provide a very supportive environment for promising students who had been in the foster care system and needed some extra support in transitioning to college life. The program provided financial, academic and personal assistance while students worked towards an undergraduate degree and navigated adulthood. It sounded like just the thing for Hameed. Plus, Seattle U is close to our home.”

Joe connected Makttoof with Colleen Montoya Barbano, director of the Fostering Scholars Program, and she was struck by Makttoof’s determination to do what it took to be at Seattle U. He returned to Central for a quarter and took the upper-level classes in math, science and psychology, his area of interest, that SU undergraduate admissions had advised, earning straight A’s. He applied and was accepted to Seattle U and the Fostering Scholars program as a transfer student.

In June 2020, Makttoof graduated from Seattle U in with a BA in psychology. He was on the Dean’s List and received the Bayanihan Award for Community Service and Involvement. Later that summer he was notified of his acceptance to graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he recently completed his first year in the PhD Clinical Psychology program. Makttoof received his U.S. citizenship in 2019.

The Schultz’s demonstration of the Jesuit value of cura personalis (care for the whole person) in their relationship with Makttoof and Joe’s role in connecting Makttoof to the life-changing Fostering Scholars Program are beautiful examples of how this alumnus engaged with the very heart of Seattle U.