Meet a Colleague: Cassie Hunt ’01 Cassie Hunt ’01 serves as executive director of strategic analysis for the university.

W&L News Office
February 12, 2025

Q. How long have you worked at W&L?
In total, I’ve been here for 19 years. I started four days after graduating in 2001, left in 2010 due to my husband’s work transfer, and returned in 2015 when he was transferred back!

Q. What do you like most about working at W&L?
Hands down, the people. I have wonderful colleagues and mentors who have given me tremendous opportunities.

Q. Where is your favorite location on the W&L campus?
I’m not sure I can pick just one. As a student, I spent every spare minute in the Lenfest Center. We were married in University Chapel so some of my favorite photos of my favorite people were taken there. I also love the places on campus that have changed several times over the years to meet the shifting needs of our community, though I usually still refer to them as whatever they were in 1997.

Q. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in southern New Jersey, surrounded by sod farms and orchards. It’s very unlike the stereotype!

Q. What advice do you have for students?
The advice that meant the most to me as an undergrad came from Marc Conner, our former Provost, when he was my first-year English professor. I had my first leading role in a show at Lenfest and was struggling to balance the extensive rehearsal time with my classwork. I went to professor Conner, feeling like a failure, to ask for an extension on a paper. He said “In 20 years you’re not going to remember this paper, but you’re going to remember that show. Enjoy it and get me the paper when you can.” He gave me permission to focus on my passion, permission to get every nugget out of the W&L experience in and out of the classroom. It’s been 26 years, I don’t remember what the paper was about or what grade I got, but I remember that Marc came to see the show.

Q. What is the most adventurous thing that you have ever done?
I travel every chance I get, and adventure follows every time you visit a new place. Visiting U.S.S.R in 1990, a year before the collapse, had an incredible impact on me. The opulence – like the Winter Palace and Peterhof – compared to the breadlines we were raced past, the black market, heavily armed soldiers everywhere. It was such a striking juxtaposition, and it changed the way I travel. I try to get past the tourist areas, the staged, antiseptic views that prevent you from really experiencing a new culture or interacting with locals.

Q. What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?
I love to bake and try new recipes but everyone in my family has a favorite and they get mad when I “experiment” rather than making what they already love.

Q. If you could live anywhere, where would you build your dream home?
I love our home in Botetourt County (though I wish it was closer to Lex). I’m happiest on our porch looking at the mountains but my dream home would be in Bellagio, on Lake Como in Italy. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.

Q. Who most inspires you?
My dad. He’s an attorney, still working full-time at age 76, and has won awards for ethics and professionalism – as you’d expect from a W&L grad. A cancer survivor who still runs three miles a day, he worked incredibly long hours when I was little but somehow never missed a softball, soccer or field hockey game and also managed to volunteer at my schools and for other local nonprofits, coach the baseball team and more. And he and my mom are just as devoted to my kids, driving seven hours each way every couple of months just to see them play soccer or perform in the school play. Dad’s example of work ethic, dedication to his family and service to his community sets a bar I aspire to every day.

Q. What book are you reading now?
I am an obsessive reader and at any given point have five or six books going. There’s always an audiobook for my commute, something in my car to read during soccer practice, a few on my Kindle and others spread throughout the house so a book is always within reach. My reading is usually based around an upcoming trip. As soon as we pick a destination, I start gathering relevant biographies and histories and maybe throw in some well-researched historical fiction set there. I also love my “Great Courses” subscription and I’m always in the middle of a course or two on an interesting topic. In between trips, I just started a challenge to read one book on every president so I’m deep into Chernow’s “George Washington.” Yes, I am a total nerd.

Q. What music are you listening to these days?
My daughter recently told me that my music isn’t “cool” so she is creating Spotify playlists for me now in an effort to make me more hip. She’s 13 so there is a lot of Taylor Swift.

Q. What is your favorite movie of all time?
I love old movies, anything with Jimmy Stewart, Katherine Hepburn or Cary Grant. If I had to pick it would be “The Lion In Winter” or “A Philadelphia Story.”

Q. What is the app you visit most often and why?
My favorite app is one called “Fog of the World” that tracks where you’ve been and what percent of the world you’ve seen. It drills down to each street, so we can intentionally go down side streets we’ve missed whenever we are in a new city, and try to “unfog” as much as possible.

Q. If they made a movie about your life, who would play you?
I have been told that my younger pictures look like Amanda Seyfried but I can’t imagine who would go to a movie about my very boring life!

Q. If you could have coffee with one person, who would it be and why?
My husband Greg ’97. He is with the FBI and was transferred to Richmond five years ago. We made the difficult choice to live apart so our kids could stay where they were settled – and I could stay at W&L! He’s home for about 30 hours most weekends and we seem to spend all of them at soccer or trying to pack a week’s worth of chores into a day. I wish we had more time to just sit together and talk.

Q. What is your desert island food?
Ice cream, specifically Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzards.

Q. Tell us something most people don’t know about you.
I’m on a quest to recreate the photographs that my late grandmother took on her travels, using her very detailed journals. It’s a lot of research and a lot of fun but slow going! It’s fascinating to read her very comprehensive descriptions of places in the 70s and 80s, where she stayed and what she ate, how much everything cost and what the local culture was like, and to reflect on how different each is now. My dream is to someday write a book centered on that experience.

Q. What is your secret talent?
Locating items my kids or husband insist are nowhere to be found. It usually involves looking exactly where I told them to look in the first place.