Alumni Council Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, June 7, 2008

Welcome—Robert Hoopes ’89
Robert opened the meeting and welcomed the Alumni Council members.

Committee Reports/Updates

Colby Fund—Hilary Smyth Wirtz ’00
Hilary offered a brief update. She noted the Colby Fund committee did not meet this morning. They have spent a lot of time over the last three or four months doing some conference calls. They have restructured their committees and will start in the fall. They have a couple of focus groups and will be focusing on marketing, solicitation, cultivation, and volunteer engagement. All of this is to augment what the Colby Fund staff is doing. Currently the cash-in numbers stand at $3,316,381 toward a goal of $4.7 million. We are running flat with last year, which is great. They expect to reach their goals by June 30. Participation is at 38.3 percent, which is ahead of last year by 2 percent, and they are really pleased with that. They feel confident that they will reach the 53 percent at the end of June. Hilary asked that the council members who have not yet made their gift to Colby please do so. Currently, the alumni council is at 78 percent participation.
 
Awards—Chris Sullivan ’97
Chris reported that outside of drawing the attention of the Alumni Council to the awards that will be received following the parade of classes before lunch today, he cannot tell them about what the committee met about and discussed today. He hoped the council enjoyed the parade of classes and noted that some of the classmates of the council members would be receiving awards following the parade before lunch today.

Athletics —Chris Vickers ’87
Chris reported the committee had a very good meeting. They discussed, as they always do, three major components to their meeting. First, they work a lot on mentoring and on relationships with coaches, and one of the initiatives that Art Brennan’68 is leading with Dick Whitmore and Marcella Zalot is trying to help coaches, especially new coaches, network more with the alumni. Secondly, Karl Dornish ’54 has been leading fundraising within the committee. The opportunity for the athletic group to help in fundraising has been improved over the last couple of years, and Karl has led them in the fundraising for the alpine ski team uniforms and so forth. And then lastly, the C Club is a part of the committee. Chris shared that Lou Zambello ’55 is the C Club Person of the Year and will be honored at the C Club dinner on October 17 during Family Homecoming Weekend. The committee is taking on, as soon as they get final approval from the school, a fundraising activity within the C Club to do webcasting that will allow them to broadcast events all over the world over the Internet. Finally, another component of the C Club is to drive membership and involvement.

Career Services—David Fernandez ’89
Dave reported there is a lot of exciting work going on at the Career Center, which has been renamed (formerly Career Services). The committee is gearing up for the CAN (Colby Alumni Network) Weekend, which is September 26 and 27. All Alumni Council members are expected to be there. Dave offered a brief overview of the events of the weekend, including speed networking, panel discussions, and mock interviews. Dave asked council members interested in being panelists to give their names and phone numbers. They will be contacted with the details. Some of the panels will be arts, music, museums, international (which will be chaired by Deborah Walthen Finn), science research, publishing, environmental, finance, and consulting, and they’re also going to have medical school, law school, and business alternatives, which will be entrepreneurship management. There are a lot of other exciting things happening at the Career Center, particularly around establishing affinity groups around industries so Colby alumni who are passionate about finance or non-profit will have a way to connect with other Colby alumni in those industries. That has a lot of promise.

Admissions—Kari Christensen Anderson ’98
Kari noted that Bro Adams gave a recap earlier. In addition to that report, Kari reported there were a series of retention events held around the country, and an impressive 50-100 percent of the students that attended ended up coming to Colby. The committee is also working on a legacy event in early September, probably in Connecticut, which will focus on demystifying the college application process. This event is for alums, and they can attend with generally their high school students, friends, and neighbors. It’s not about just the Colby admission process but the admission process in general. Janice Kassman gave the committee a great recap of the Reach Back program that she has been working on in the D.C. area. Another new program they are working on is reaching out to the Wabanaki population in Maine. There are four or five tribes or communities in northern and eastern Maine, and they are reaching out to these students starting around fourth grade. They are just developing a relationship between Colby students and these communities by bringing community leaders to campus and developing an on-going relationship in order to reach that culture and provide another opportunity for these students.

Nominating—Mike Cuzzi ’98
Mike reported the nominating committee has placed in nomination Jaime Cowie ’77 and Jane Powers ’86 to renew their terms as alumni members of the Board of Trustees. Their names have already appeared in Colby magazine and the comment period has closed. All things were favorable, so they will renew their terms. Also, one of our alumni trustees, Adrienne Clay ’97, resigned her position on the Board of Trustees, so the nominating committee will be working to fill her slot expeditiously, and in the coming year we also will have two other alumni trustees who will be ending their terms on the board—Phil Goldfarb ’68 and Tim Hussey ’78. So we will have three vacancies on the Board of Trustees to fill this year, and the committee will keep the council posted as they do that.

Robert Hoopes offered some closing comments. He noted that Adrienne Clay will continue to be a terrific volunteer for the college. Adrienne recently had a baby and finds that attending some of these meetings is somewhat of a challenge. Robert apologized for having to move so briskly through the committee reports. He’s not sure it does a service or speaks to the volume of work that each of the committees is doing. He also reminded the group of the changes that they started talking about two and a half years ago with the chairs and vice chairs of each of the committees about how to create a meaningful Alumni Council structure that meets the needs of the College complimented the staff of the college, and complimented the goals and objectives of the College while also creating meaningful volunteer opportunities for people who want to be involved. The vote was to change the bylaws of the council and to restructure it downward with 97 percent for the change and 3 percent in opposition to the change. Robert briefly talked about the changes that will occur. One of the changes will be this year’s reunion classes will not be electing class vice presidents who would then serve on the Alumni Council. This was always intended to be a transition process, one that takes a little bit of time and allows them to be thoughtful and make sure they are putting people and resources where they need them, but also simultaneously creating alternative opportunities. Whether it’s the C Club or the Colby Alumni Network (CAN) Weekend, those are terrific opportunities to be involved. So, they will continue to generate those, and will continue to look for people to continue to be involved.

Robert thanked the council for their support of and involvement with the College.

Next Alumni Council meeting: September 27, 2008, in conjunction with Colby Alumni Network (CAN) Weekend.