Dr. Gabe Cagwin, who joined UIS in October, 2024 serves as the Vice Chancellor for Advancement/Senior Vice President for the University of Illinois Foundation and sits on the Chancellor’s Cabinet.  In this role, he is responsible for ensuring long-term growth in the university’s advancement efforts, including major philanthropic fundraising, alumni relations, corporate and foundation relations, prospect research, advancement communications, and capital campaigns. 

Before arriving at UIS, Cagwin was the Vice President of Development at Chapman University where he oversaw all fundraising, annual giving, legacy planning, communications, prospect research/management, and corporate/foundation relations in support of Chapman’s $500,000,000 comprehensive campaign, the largest in school history. 

Prior to joining Chapman University, Cagwin was the President of the USA Triathlon Foundation and Chief Advancement Officer for two years. He managed all facets and daily operations of the Foundation as well as the Board of Trustees. During his time with the Foundation, fundraising and donor count records grew almost 400% and grants that the Foundation provided to impact the lives of others increased from $200,000 to almost $1,000,000.

Prior to joining USA Triathlon, he served as the Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Tarleton State University. As part of the President’s Executive Cabinet, he provided strategic oversight to development and fundraising, advancement services, alumni engagement and university event management. One of his main goals was to lead and bring a new perspective to help them launch the largest capital campaign in school history, a $100 million campaign that, thanks to early success, was two years ahead of schedule, and increased their goal to $125 million. Tarleton experienced their most successful year in fundraising history under Gabe's guidance breaking records for fundraising, donor count, Alumni Association growth and bringing in the largest cash gifts and endowments in school history.

Prior to joining Tarleton, Gabe was a member of Arizona State University’s executive leadership team since 2012, where he started as the Associate Athletic Director, was promoted to Senior Associate Athletic Director, and then a year later, promoted to Chief Business Development Officer. He oversaw the fundraising campaign for the $306 million Sun Devil Stadium renovation, managed all capital campaigns, helped manage ASU’s 330-acre Athletics District to monetize university land and provide assets for the community, increased donor count from 8,500 to over 16,000, and took their fundraising from raising $7-$10M a year to consistently topping $46M annually, with a high of $86M.

Gabe played Division I basketball at the University at Buffalo, where he graduated magna cum laude with his Bachelor’s degree in 2002, his Master’s degree in higher education in 2004, and then his Ph.D. in higher education administration in 2006, all from the University at Buffalo. He and his wife Angela have 2 boys, Cash (5 years old) and Caden (4 years old).