As a student, coach, counselor, and more, Christopher Fourman ’09 M’11 found his niche in the Wagner College community. As Wagner’s new director of alumni relations, he wants to assist his fellow alumni in connecting with the College, too, so that they can help make Wagner an even better place.
Fourman began leading the Office of Alumni Relations in February 2015. “I am really enjoying working with Heather and Rebecca to build our alumni programming,” he says. “Since February, we have executed several wonderful events like Reunion and the Eataly cooking class, and we have many more great events planned for the rest of this summer, this fall, and next year.”
“This place is constantly growing and evolving. But it doesn’t grow and evolve without people who drive and propel that evolution.”
Fourman has been a member of the Wagner community for 10 years. He grew up in Greenville, Ohio, and had intended to stay in Ohio for college until he was recruited by then-assistant Wagner golf coach Dan Waeger M’06. The possibility of playing Division I golf at a small school in New York City changed his mind about his college choice.
Fourman calls himself a “numbers guy,” and he grew up helping to run his family’s appliance and furniture business. He pursued a major in business administration focused on finance. A Wall Street internship revealed to him that finance was not what he wanted for his career. (Not to mention that he started on the day that Bear Stearns tanked in 2008.)
Also during Fourman’s senior year, the golf program experienced a devastating loss: Coach Waeger died of lung cancer at the age of 26, the culmination of a four-year battle with the disease.
Upon graduation, Fourman stepped into Waeger’s shoes and became the graduate assistant for golf while also earning his MBA in finance. He was named head coach in 2011, and Fourman remains head golf coach while also serving as alumni director. His passion for the program is obvious; it earned him the recognition of NEC Golf Coach of the Year in 2011 and this year, and the men’s and women’s teams have steadily improved during his coaching career.
Fourman has always held multiple jobs at Wagner — while coaching, he was also co-resident director of Harborview Hall, then an admissions counselor, and then assistant athletic director for academics and compliance. All of these positions helped him discover his niche in higher education and his gifts for working with people.
Fourman says that his work with the golf team, in particular, motivates his efforts in alumni relations.
“I’ve put so much effort into reinvigorating what I found important in my Wagner experience,” he says. “I loved my coaches, but we needed more resources, and we needed to play on better courses. We just needed to do a little bit more. So I put a lot of effort into improving my program.
“This place is constantly growing and evolving,” he adds. “But it doesn’t grow and evolve without people who drive and propel that evolution. I’m interested in tapping into alumni who have their golf team, or their choir, or their residence life experience that they really care about as I do my experiences at Wagner and they want to help the college evolve in those areas.”
