Alumni Board Meeting Minutes

Spring Meeting
Saturday, May 6, 2000
College Hall
Julia H. Gutz '88, presiding

Attending:
Julia H. Gutz '88, president
Michael Conklin '69, president-elect
Margaret Smyth Emmons '44
Richard A. (Joe) Morton '50
Tom Cox '52
John K. Lively '55
Joseph Campanelli '69
Nels Lindquist '71
Barb Schultz '71
Lu Ann White '78
Ann Parker Foote '79
Jeff Schwiebert '81
Ruth Brown Ward '82
Martha Kimbrough '83
Michael Mudlaff '88
Cinthia Adams '98
Jane Riessen '00

Absent:
Brian Klepinger '60
Tom Reinhard '65
Sally Larson Sargent '72
Jeanne Lamear Luther '74
Danielle Bright '97
Kirk Wilkie '95
Ryan Tucker '96
Ann Peiffer '99

Staff:
Les Garner, President
Terry Gibson '59, Vice President for Alumni and College Advancement
Debbie Green, Director of College Advancement
Ruth Miller '66, Alumni Director
Dee Ann Rexroat '82, College Communications Director
Bev Moser, Hon. '80, Alumni Programs Coordinator

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Julia reported that the Strategic Plan has been followed and many accomplishments by the various committees have been made. She asked the board members to fill out the survey they had received and return it to Ruth. She expressed appreciation to Ruth for hosting the board at her home on Friday evening.

Minutes of the October 29, 1999 meeting were approved by motion of Joe Morton '50 and second by Tom Cox '52.

Ruth Keefe Miller, '66 Alumni Director, gave a report. She told the board that magnets and business card holders would be given to each senior who attends the senior brunch on Friday, May 19, and all seniors will receive a King Chapel picture as they walk off the stage the day of Commencement. Julia Gutz will present the pictures. She informed the board that steering committees are up and running in Denver and Minneapolis. She wants to make the students aware of the Alumni Association while they are students and is trying to find ways to make the association more visible to the students. Board members will be paired with a CASA student-alum chum.

President Les Garner addressed the board. He thanked them for being present for the meeting and said he is very proud of what has been accomplished by the board. There is great momentum, and good leadership. Alumni gatherings have been well received by the constituency around the country; Golden Alumni Club / Heritage Society weekend was a great success; board has assisted the Admissions Office. Admissions is the top priority this year. The goal is to raise the enrollment to1200. We need the help of all alumni in recruiting efforts. Construction of Law Hall is ahead of schedule and will be ready for occupancy in August 2000. Merner Hall will be vacated for the 2000-2001 school year and a complete renovation will be done-new wiring, plumbing, and heating. John Harp will take over the position of Dean of Students with the retirement of Joan Claar. We are adjusting to the Iowa Athletic Conference very well, and beginning to compete at a level we aspire to. Ed Hill, Don Cell and Cot Graber will all retire at the end of the school year. Recruiting for replacements is going well. Stephen Lacey '65, professor of English passed away in March, and a Memorial Service will be conducted this afternoon, May 6. Katherine Burroughs a former faculty member will take his tour to England in January 2001. David Weddle is leaving Cornell to take a position at Colorado College. Dennis Herrick, former editor of the Mt. Vernon Sun has been hired as an advisor for the Cornellian student newspaper.

The general meeting broke out to committee meetings. Each committee was given the assignment of keeping accurate minutes of the meeting which are to be given to Bev Moser.

Following the committee meetings, the board members served lunch to the students. Hats and aprons were donned, and a good time was had by all.

The board reconvened in Harlan dining room for lunch during which time committee reports were given.

Communications Committee

Long term objective: Connect more alumni with Cornell.

Yearly objective:
1) Increase awards
2) Refine and develop college's Web site for alumni

Project Updates:

 

A. Refrigerator magnet-Ann Parker Foote. Thought our magnets would be duplicating the

ones passed out for Homecoming 2000 to all reunion classes. Will put on hold because of finances and in hopes the college will continue to send to reunion classes.

B. T-shirts-Barbara Schultz. Decided to poll the board to see if they would buy and wear them.
C. Bookstore on line-John Lively. Dee Ann reported that it was up on 5/4/00. It is very basic; books and some gift items. Hard to find right now, but will be hotlinked to alumni page.
D. Alumni Section of Cornell Web site-Dee Ann Rexroat. Lots of opportunity right now! Could have all kinds of groups online-class reunions, etc. No secure site yet; therefore no online ordering yet. Admissions is top priority for these groups.
E. Awards-John Lively. Nomination form is on Cornell Web site. Dee Ann said we have the opportunity now to send an e-mail to Bev for nominations for awards. It is on the same page as the list of who has gotten the awards.
F. Other Internet activities
a. Dee Ann is working on getting the magazine online.
b. Bev told us about the large number of e-mail addresses that change-big problem when she sends mass e-mail.

Leadership and Service Award Recognition.
Dee Ann read description. We still have nine alumni selected who have not received the award, but plans are being made to present them. Mike Conklin nominated Keith North. The committee approved the nomination. It will be presented to him at the Alumni Convocation at Homecoming in September which is Keith's 40th reunion.
Lu Ann White nominated Bob Majors and Dennis Fisher for their involvement in the Delt Reunion. The committee decided to nominate and speak with Bob Bowman (who was most heavily involved) to expand the list of people who worked on the event. Joe Morton will speak with Bob Bowman.

Communications for Reunion Classes-Ruth Miller.
Samples of what is being done for classes this year were handed out to the board members. In the future the alumni office would like a Web site for each reunion class to have updates as to who has registered for the reunion. There is a problem as to who will up-date the info, with hopes that a student worker will be able to do it.

An Alumni Association Handbook for graduating seniors is in the works. Dee Ann will e-mail a draft to the committee. Hopes are to have this published by graduation in 2001.

Other business.
Develop an "angel list" of potential donors with seed money for small projects. No time to discuss-will put on agenda for next fall.

Alumni and College Advancement Committee

Reflected on what they have accomplished and it is as follows:

Area clubs and up and running in the following areas: St. Louis; Greater Cornell; Denver; Minneapolis; Phoenix. Quad Cities and Des Moines are still works in progress in getting a steering committee together. Various activities and events have taken place in all of the 5 areas.

Primarily due to Mike Conklin's efforts, the framework for conducting an Alumni Workshop have been provided to the Alumni Office. Mike and Ruth took this information and their talents to Denver and applied some of the suggestions listed on the document submitted to Ruth.

Some of the work done in regards to other action steps listed under Long Term Objective #1: The first bullet under Action Steps: Joe made about 5 phone calls attempting to get someone from the classes in the '30s without agents to take on the responsibility and did not meet with much success.

Second bullet: Tom and Joe did not sign and send letters to the class gents of the '30s and '40s era as outlined.

Third bullet: Birthday card program has been implemented and is being done entirely by the Alumni Office as it is easier to have them send it out then to have to mail it to Julia for her signature.

Fourth bullet: Joe reported that he called several in the '40s era and thanked them for their work (while asking for suggestions to fill vacancies in other classes) and they were delighted to get a thank you phone call. (They are going to single out 10 class agents who are going to be planning reunions next year to get a similar phone call.)

AGENDA ITEMS

1. Class Agent Program
A. Appreciation:
Joe is going to compose a letter (similar to Ruth's of last year) to be sent to class agents with a token of appreciation (pen?) thanking them, encouraging them to continue doing a good job and extending an invitation to come back to Homecoming for Class Agent meeting. (Class agents who have not been active will receive a slightly different letter from Joe, outlining the responsibilities and asking if they wish to continue as class agent.)

They are also leaving it up to Debbie Green to divide up the 10 or so class agents who will be planning reunions next fall (2001) to get a phone call to begin the process of forming a committee and everything else needed to plan their reunion. Debbie will assign the 2-3 agents to call each committee member and she will provide us with a sheet listing the important talking points.

B. Letters for Older Classes with no Agent
To solve this dilemma they are going to share the burden with the Alumni Office in the following way: one of the board members will write the fall letter to these classes and the Alumni Office will write the spring letter. It will be the same fall letter for all classes without an agent and they will rotate the task to different board members. This year Joe will call Jeanne Luther to take this responsibility.

II. Area Club Activity

They covered the activity in their earlier reflections of what they have accomplished and hope that things will continue with each area club having at least 2 events each year. They hope to get more and different alumni involved in the steering committees.

III New Business

A. How to Establish Presence with Students

Opened this up for some brainstorming and came up with two suggestions-Orientation and Parents' Weekend. For Orientation we can provide someone to "man" a station giving out Popsicles, or something to new students and parents to make them aware of the Alumni Association.

For Parents' Weekend we're not sure what took place, but if there was a gathering of parents, having an Alumni Board Member take a few minutes to explain who and what we are would be beneficial. (The office will talk to John Harp to see if the Alumni Association can be part of the program).

Homecoming: Participate in any future Homecoming parade and also the Carnival at Homecoming, but the Carnival interferes with the Alumni Convocation that is happening on Saturday morning. Nels and Mike talked about an alumni-swimming race that is being planned for 2001.

B. Brainstorm Reunion Ideas

Discussed what is happening with the Class of 1950's reunion and whether we need to rethink Homecoming and Alumni Weekend. Debbie handed out a position paper for us to review. Although brief discussions took place due to time, the consensus was that probably classes from this point on would prefer to celebrate their class reunions at Homecoming and not in the heat of the summer.

Following the report, Julia asked them to go back and try to arrive at a solution to dealing with "inactive" class agents-agents who have not done their letters, etc. for years and need to be tactfully replaced.

Student Assistance

1. CLASP program update by Keith Munson.

A total of 160 responses have been received. This includes last year's responses and the new ones that are coming in from this spring's mailings. The mailings have been spread out since mid-March and were concluded on May 1. Keith is expecting more responses.

A CLASP database has been developed and the interest form is available on the Cornell Web site.

There has been less attention to CLASP from what was intended due to administration turnover. Once a new associate is hired, Keith will focus more of his attention on CLASP.

This coming year, internships will be the top priority. We are especially interested in more development outside of the Greater Cornell area. Keith is available to help alumni/employers set up internship programs. This is important, as block-plan internships are unique.

The Greater Cornell area is critical for alumni integration into campus opportunities such as 'Destination Days,' and the like. CLASP data has been utilized to recruit alumni for 'Advancing Leaders' workshops, which have been successful. These workshops help students make connections in the workplace and learn about financial readiness in the "real" world.

Keith indicated that fall is a tough time because students do not prepare for possible internships during the summer. It is difficult then to establish an internship for fall. Many students identify internship needs by geographic location. If we do not have a CLASP vocational match by location, we can still contact alumni for networking purposes.

LuAnn suggested that Cornell contact CLASP area coordinators soon to update them on the progress of CLASP and encourage them in their willingness to help. We do not want to lose folks who have volunteered but have not been called. We should also make some contact with those who have responded. Keith believes that he should contact AC's by phone-particularly those in the areas planning alumni events.

We are encouraged to continue to network and recruit alumni to participate in CLASP in the future.

Michael and Lu Ann will touch base with Keith during the summer.

Keith will contact us in the fall with more specific needs for CLASP recruiting.

2. Student/Alumni involvement and CASA

Ruth passed out a recent e-mail she sent to Lu Ann with ideas.

1. Hosting a tent(?) at orientation for new students and their parents and distributing some item....(popscicles, pencils, bumper stickers, mouse pads with Cornell logo, many associations give mugs) Have our banner visible; alumni.greet parents and students.

2. Doing more with the CASA members...CASA students having an "Alum Chum" from the board who would take an interest in them...

3. Serving the students when the board is on campus...

4. I would love to pass out some small item at the opening game or homecoming game that says Alumni Association

5. Sponsor ads in the Cornellian with the photos of Alumni Award recipients

6. I'm working with the Communications Office and board committee to print a Alumni Association brochure to give to graduating seniors (Hopefully ready by Spring 2001)

7.Retention is always a big challenge...maybe the alumni association can do something to sponsor a "Half Way There!" event/gift for those students who have completed half of the required blocks to graduate. (A stress ball with the college logo...pizza....)

We felt optimistic about the possibility of many of the ideas: orientation tent and gift (Board and Greater Cornell alumni to staff), enhancing 'alum chum' idea, serving students while on campus (we did that later in the day), gift for distribution at Homecoming game, advertisements highlighting alumni award recipients in Cornellian (Ruth will work with Dee Ann on this), new alumni association piece to be distributed at Commencement and first letter from class agent (Ruth plans to have in place for 2001). Ruth discussed some possible revenue generating ideas such as the Cornell ring. We need to encourage the board to begin discussing the revenue issue. We are severely limited without resources.
Michael agreed to assist Ruth in developing this area more between now and our fall meeting. CASA is strategic in connecting future alumni to the Alumni Association. More involvement on campus and at Commencement seem to be the priorities.

3. Admissions Efforts

Sharon gave a glowing report of the alumni e-mail contact project. There were 216 alumni responding, with half having been given contacts to date. With the growing interest in and use of technology, this is an important resource. She attempted to utilize this list for soliciting vocational interest letters from successful OCAAT alumni, but without much response. It seems that e-mail participants prefer to volunteer in the e-mail project only. We will seek help from class agents with the recruiting for letters.

The hotel interview project was also very successful. We will work on polishing this up for the fall. Fall dates will be determined over the summer. There is no need to recruit more alumni volunteers at this time.

Florence discussed ways of reaching applicants that are not near Cornell. The 'market of 1' concept is promising. This will address the question of how to contact potential students who may not be able to visit campus or meet an alum.

The Web site will be the first priority to generate personal contact with such applicants in order to create a personal touch with potential students we cannot meet. Possibilities include: alumni 'on call' electronically and vocational 'chat rooms' between potential students, students and alumni.

Julia thanked everyone for their participation and said she was impressed with the creative ideas the committees have come up with. She asked that the committee chairs get their minutes to Bev as soon as possible.

Meeting adjourned at 2:45 p.m. so that board members could attend the Stephen Lacey Memorial Service in King Chapel.