Alana Klass, a senior associate director at Lafayette College’s Gateway Career Center, will retire at the end of this academic year after nearly two decades of mentorship and advocacy for students.
“For me, it was all about just helping people realize their potential and realizing that there’s so much here at Lafayette that students just don’t know about,” Klass said of her time at Lafayette. “Sometimes it’s just being the support or advocate that they need.”
Klass first arrived at the college in 1998, working as an assistant director in career services.
“I was a first-generation college student, so in my undergrad, I didn’t have a lot of direction,” Klass said. “I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So when I did the career internship, everything clicked. It made some sense to me.”
After leaving the school in 2008 to work at Muhlenberg College, Klass returned to Lafayette in 2016, where she’s been for the last nine years.
“When I started at the college 9 years ago, Alana was the first person I met outside of the advising office,” sophomore class dean Brandon Morris wrote in an email. “I like to say we started as colleagues, but ended up as family throughout the years.”
Klass also works to advance access and inclusion in the college, working with traditionally underrepresented students to increase opportunities.
“She would come to the table with questions, opportunities, like, how can we find new ways to support students with this particular challenge that we haven’t seen before?” said Melissa Schultz, a director of Gateway.
Executive Director of Inclusion Kimberly Weatherly noted that the Office of Intercultural Development found an ally in Klass.
“She doesn’t just stay behind the scenes, she shows up at student events (even when they’re not in her job description!), and students genuinely know her,” Weatherly wrote in an email.
Klass earned the 2024 Fraternity and Sorority Life “Community Partner of the Year” award for her work with Greek Life networks in providing professional development programming.
“As a sorority alum, she made sure that she was known within the fraternal community as a resource to support their growth and development,” Associate Director of Fraternity & Sorority Life Jake Bates wrote in an email.
Mike Summers, the associate vice president of Gateway, referred to Klass as a “tireless advocate” at her retirement celebration.
In addition to working more broadly on projects for advocacy and inclusion, Klass connected with students as a career advisor throughout her time at Lafayette.
“Some of the best advice I’ve ever received came straight from Alana’s mouth,” Andrew Madera Pineda ‘27 said.
“She really has expanded my eyes, personally, and what I could do with my future,” Sarah Aparicio ‘25 said. “I was very on this narrow trajectory of what I was gonna do, and she really helped me get comfortable and confident in just exploring my options.”
Madera Pineda, a Posse scholar, and Aparicio, a member of the Hispanic Finance Association and Hispanic Society of Lafayette, both noted the dedication Klass demonstrated to creating community on campus.
“I definitely have witnessed her work firsthand of helping students that are underrepresented,” Aparicio said. “She’s definitely made me feel more comfortable here on campus and helped create spaces where we are comfortable and are able to be ourselves and celebrate our cultures.”
“I’m always looking for how to be an advocate — how to support, what are we missing, where can we grow, what do we need to do to bridge — kind of thing,” Klass said. “So it’s been my life story here, literally.”