It’s A Cluster: Class agents start podcast for deeper alumni connection
September 17, 2026 — When class agents Caito Scherr ’09, Fonz Jenkins ’10, and Jake Joseph ’11 gathered on campus in 2024 to plan their 15-year cluster Reunion, they had no idea this would lead to a new way of engaging classmates beyond the traditional class letter.
“We were excited to be together planning that Reunion because we’d gone through the pandemic time of canceled events and online hybrid gatherings, so getting classmates engaged was important,” Joseph recalls.
All three were facing similar issues in the class agent role. “Originally there was more than one class agent per class,” Scherr explains. “But people started dropping off, which was challenging.” The three discussed this conundrum, brainstorming ways to make the experience more manageable.
THE POD
“We really wanted to stay connected with the College but also wanted to get away from the archaic newsletter,” Jenkins says. “Jake came up with the wonderful idea of doing a podcast instead.”
The inaugural episode of It’s a Cluster! aired this summer, introducing the podcast idea as well as the class agents behind it.
“The response surprised us,” Scherr admits. “I do social media as my day job, so I had a detailed plan that didn’t all happen in the end. I did post two graphics on the Instagram account not expecting we’d have so many followers so quickly.” They also received several congratulatory messages as well as inquiries about who was working behind the scenes on the podcast.
Jake Joseph ’11
Joseph, associate director of regional clubs at the Yale Alumni Association, was inspired by this idea in part due to the unique set of skills they each brought to the table.
“Caito has experience in sound tech for running the podcast and is able to plan and outline the program,” he explains. “Fonz is an events coordinator, which helps keep us on track in our meetings, and my background helped me see an opportunity for this new idea within the industry.”
The trio didn’t know one another as students, which Scherr believes is why they have such a strong dynamic now. “While we share many experiences from being there at the same time, we’re also able to tap into different friend groups in our outreach,” they say.
Scherr lives in Portland, Oregon and is a self-described “software engineer-turned-developer-advocate” with a focus on uplifting those who tend to be underrepresented in tech. Beyond class agent work, they keep up with the College through Grinnell-in-Portland Regional Network and Grinnell Rainbow Alumni events as well as helping plan the annual Reunion drag show.
“My involvement with Grinnell has been multigenerational,” Scherr says. “It’s incredible having alumni who lived through the AIDS crisis in the 1980s share their stories with people who have just graduated. Bringing classes together sparks more of a community feeling.”
Jenkins believes that this podcast would not have resonated so broadly had it represented just one class. “The idea of a cluster is important in the development of this format,” he says. “While we shared different experiences at Grinnell, we were all on campus at the same time, so we have that connection.”
The class agents plan to do bimonthly episodes covering a wide range of topics from common issues affecting alumni at this stage in their lives to highlighting the expertise of fellow classmates along with Grinnell faculty and staff. They have a spreadsheet already teeming with ideas contributed from their classmates.
It's A Cluster title slide.
A political science major, Jenkins enjoyed being able to explore many topics through the open curriculum at Grinnell. “It was a spark to the curiosity that is college,” he says.
Currently living in Des Moines, Jenkins continues to explore and create. “My full-time passion-without-responsibilities is acting,” he says. “My day job of events coordinator fuels this dream.”
A French major who studied abroad for a year, Joseph spent his final Grinnell semester in a full-time internship at the Grinnell Regional Medical Center’s hospice program. As an alumnus, he has served as a regional volunteer, initially co-chairing Grinnell-on-the-Front Range. In 2019, he co-founded the Grinnell-in-Southern New England regional network.
Fonz Jenkins ’10
“Grinnell was certainly about what I learned in the classroom,” he says. “But just as importantly, it was about all the people who helped me discover what I could learn beyond it. Fifteen years after Grinnell, my life looks different than what I imagined, but I think the person I was then would recognize it immediately. Whether through ministry, affordable housing, alumni community, family, or an excessive enthusiasm for Connecticut, I seem to have built a life around bringing people together and caring deeply about places and communities.”
Scherr says they are grateful that the College helped get the podcast on YouTube and sent an email out about it.
“It’s a wild idea to build a community from people who graduated from an institution and went a thousand different directions,” Joseph adds. “We are currently covering the missing middle of alumni engagement, but we have decades ahead of us, so the runway is generous and opportunities to connect will continue to shift.”
—by Melanie Drake ’92