Dodenhoff to return home to New Orleans
Michelle Dodenhoff, the vice president for development and alumni affairs, will leave USC in April after eight years, including three as a vice president.
Dodenhoff led Carolina’s Promise, the university’s largest-ever capital campaign, which hopes to raise $1 billion by 2015. It had raised $655 million by the end of December, she said, and could exceed its goal.
She became the associate vice president for university development in 2004 and twice served as an interim vice president before taking the title permanently in November 2009.
She’ll leave her $257,500-a-year position April 12.
USC President Harris Pastides wasn’t available to comment Wednesday afternoon, but spokesman Wes Hickman said no decisions had yet been made about interim appointments.
“Those will be tough shoes to fill,” Hickman said. “Michelle has done an incredible job.”
Over the last eight years, Dodenhoff said she’s seen a culture shift around fundraising at USC. Now, it involves more offices around the university, and it’s seen a bigger push toward landing large gifts.
“Everyone feels that they have a part in the fundraising,” Dodenhoff said. “It’s not just some development office over there.”
Dodenhoff will become a senior vice president and the chief development officer at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans.
It was a “gut-wrenching” family decision to return to her hometown, despite it being where her children were born and where her husband recently underwent surgery, Dodenhoff said.
Before moving to Columbia, Dodenhoff worked 11 years in New Orleans at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center in a number of fundraising and alumni relations roles.
Dodenhoff marks the second university vice president to announce a departure this semester.
Last month, Luanne Lawrence, the vice president of communications, said she would leave mid-March for a job at the University of California, Davis.