“Behind the Scenes” of Yankee Dental Congress with Stacey McNamee, GSDM Director of Alumni Relations & Annual Giving
Editor’s Note: To learn more about what happened at the 2024 Yankee Dental Congress, click here for our round-up.
Any major event has a group of masterminds working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure every detail is executed perfectly, creating a seamless experience for attendees.
In 2024, we want to shine spotlight on these individuals, so we’re launching a “Behind the Scenes” series that will take a look at various members of the GSDM community who go above and beyond to bring GSDM events and experiences to fruition. For the first installment, we spoke with Stacey McNamee, GSDM director of alumni relations & annual giving, about how she prepares for GSDM’s involvement in the Yankee Dental Congress, a three-day meeting for dental professionals held every January.
McNamee has been involved in planning for the Yankee Dental Congress since she has been in this role at GSDM starting in 2005. (She has been working at GSDM since 1991 in previous roles.) GSDM typically hosts an “alumni lounge” in the conference’s Exhibit Hall as well as a much-anticipated alumni reception at a nearby hotel. Every year, McNamee said her goal is to figure out how to best transform her 20-by-20-feet booth into the alumni lounge in a visually appealing and space effective way.
“You don’t want to come and see the same stuff every year,” McNamee said. “How much stuff can I do in this small 20-by-20 space to get the most recognition for BU?”
The 2024 Yankee Dental Congress is taking place from Thursday, January 25, through Saturday, January 27, and McNamee has a few tricks up her sleeve to make it unique, including fun new giveaways for alumni and a special reunion event for the DMD/DMD AS Class of 2004 and the DMD/DMD AS Class of 2007.
Planning Starts Early
Planning for Yankee Dental starts months in advance. McNamee received emails from Yankee Dental’s organizing committee in May 2023 about the 2024 event.
After McNamee confirms next year’s booth reservation with the conference’s planning committee, she then orders her giveaway items–typically by early December–to guarantee the items arrive in time. The trick is identifying items that alumni will be expected to receive and use; for this year’s Yankee, Development & Alumni Relations selected GSDM-branded chip clips, pens, and coffee sleeves.
McNamee then puts Yankee Dental Congress planning on the back burner until after Thanksgiving. But as soon as she returns to work from the holiday, everything ramps up.
Between late November to mid-December, McNamee orders all the food and furniture she will need to stock her booth throughout the three-day conference. It is essential to place orders as early as possible to create a fun environment that is both aesthetically pleasing and cost effective.
“You really have to make sure that you meet the deadlines,” she said.
She also works closely with Catie Dargue, GSDM assistant dean of development & alumni relations, and GSDM Communications to plan a timeline and methods for promoting GSDM’s presence at Yankee to alumni and other key audiences; this includes sending invitations via email, promoting on social media, and sharing information on the school’s website.
McNamee said she also collaborates with Amanda Modelevsky, GSDM director of meetings & events, during this time period to brainstorm the design of the lounge space. She said Modelevsky and Jenna McMahon, event coordinator, are also essential to the planning and setting up the alumni reception.
Once McNamee returns to work in early January from the University’s winter break, her focus shifts almost entirely to putting the finishing touches on Yankee Dental Congress.
“I’m in full Yankee Dental mode until the end of January,” she said.
It Takes a Village
Although McNamee tends to be the face of GSDM, mingling with alumni, she emphasized that it takes a vast group of talent colleagues to pull off Yankee Dental Congress.
In 2023, McNamee said she was a “one-woman band,” balancing the day-to-day tasks of Development & Alumni Relations and planning Yankee Dental Congress, while the school was actively searching to fill two other positions on the team. Dargue and Kwan Chan-Hawes, development associate, joined the Development & Alumni Relations team in May 2023 and August 2023 respectively, and McNamee is ecstatic that they will be contributing their distinctive skillsets to this year’s event.
In addition to working with Dargue, Chan-Hawes, Modelevsky, McMahon, and the Communications team, McNamee said she also coordinates up with Kelly Marcinkewich, executive director of clinical administration, Student Affairs, Continuing Education, and Admissions to create different ways they can enact with members of the greater GSDM community on-site.
“There’s a mighty team with me, everybody doing their part to make this work,” McNamee said. “I’d like to say it was all me, but that would be a big lie. There’s no way I could do it without the great team that I have.”
It’s an exciting challenge to figure out how to best maximize everyone’s involvement, McNamee said. For this year, Marcinkewich will have her own booth to recruit hygiene and dental assistants (in previous years, Marcinkewich joined McNamee in the alumni lounge). With Continuing Education, alumni can receive a 25 percent discount if they register on-site, which is a huge draw for alumni, McNamee said.
Although no one from Admissions will be physically present at the lounge, McNamee said she has discovered that prospective dental students have asked her admissions-related questions in previous years and wanted to be more prepared. Now, she will have admissions brochures to give to these prospective students, so they can walk away with Admissions contact information and background information.
This year, Student Affairs will be promoting ASDA gear in the lounge for the first time and allow alums to online order. (ASDA gear will be shipped directly to alumni from Elmwood Sports.) McNamee said this is an excellent opportunity for alumni to buy school merchandise as the BU bookstore does not sell GSDM-specific items.
“You’ve got to look at who the cast of characters are, and ask yourself, ‘How do I best get them involved,’” McNamee said.
Putting it All Together
Everything that McNamee envisioned for months comes to life the Wednesday afternoon before the event officially starts. McNamee and her team head over to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center to assemble the space early so that it is ready to go the second they walk into the space the following day.
When alums arrive at the alumni lounge, McNamee and alumni board members volunteers the front desk will hand them a special Boston University branded lanyard and puffy sticker–a commodity she said alums eagerly look forward to getting. Once their Yankee Dental Congress badges are scanned, the alums are ready to go into the lounge and mingle.
“Everything about the whole three days has to be as easy as possible for all the alums showing up,” McNamee said.
Once the alums are inside the lounge, they don’t want to leave, McNamee joked –the true sign of a well-executed booth.
“In years past, they’re rolling up the carpet to clean up for Yankee, and I still have alumni in the lounge,” McNamee said.
Being the Mama Bear
Despite moments of stress and months of coordination, McNamee said she knows she and her team succeeded with their vision when she sees hundreds of alums together having an enjoyable time.
From organizing an alumni board meeting to chatting to attendees in the alumni lounge, McNamee bounces all over the convention center over the three days. It’s a balancing act, but it is one that has come easier with years of practice, she said. Now, she looks forward to the coordinated chaos.
“When I look in at the reception and I see so many alums laughing and talking to each other [and] loving it, that makes me happy,” McNamee said. “It’s like a mama bear seeing all your kids getting along. I feel like my motherly instinct always kicks in. I look at [Yankee Dental Congress] like it’s my family and it’s a big family reunion.”