All the Ingredients

James Lyons came aboard as the new vice president for University Relations in mid-October, but folks who were here for Grand Reunion before that may have run into him on campus then. After all, he didn’t want to miss the biggest annual gathering of Broncos. He now heads up SCU’s fundraising, government relations, alumni relations, and marketing and communications activities (a division where this mag resides). No stranger to Catholic higher ed, he comes to us from University of Portland (perennial women’s soccer rival, we note), where he headed up admissions (result: 600 percent increase in applicants) and then was VP of university relations and point guard for Portland’s RISE campaign, a $175 million shebang that was the largest in the school’s 111-year history. He’s been president of the National Catholic Colleges Admission Association and directed admissions at Sonoma State University and Seattle University, the latter his alma mater (undergrad and grad). After college, he took a year off to travel the world. So maybe it’s no surprise that he says: “Santa Clara has all the ingredients to make a significant and lasting impact—from the Silicon Valley to sites throughout the globe.”