letter to alumni:
Dear Clark Alumni,
As the academic year begins, the Alumni Association is looking forward to a new year of Clark events and new opportunities for alumni to volunteer and stay connected with Clark.
I want to thank those of you who have contributed to Clark this past year, whether through your active participation on our Board of Trustees or Alumni Association, volunteer efforts on behalf of the Alumni and Parents Admissions Program (APAP), or your local support of Clark events. Thank you for all you have done and all that I know you will continue to contribute in the year ahead.
There are many ways that you can become more involved with Clark’s Alumni Association. You can join APAP and the ranks of alumni (600 members strong and growing) who are instrumental in interviewing prospective students and helping Admissions recruit the next class of Clarkies, or become involved in planning regional events within your local community. There are various committees within the Alumni Executive Board—such as Student Outreach, Athletics, and Awards—that would welcome your help. Those of you in Reunion years have a great opportunity to get together with your classmates to help plan Reunion Weekend. Clark needs your input, so I hope that you will consider donating some of your time and wisdom to Alumni Association efforts. I encourage you to contact me or the Alumni Office for more details.
Clark has planned some exciting programs for alumni this year. To learn more about these events, please check the alumni calendar in this publication (see page 33) or online at www.clarku.edu/alumni/regional. For those of you living in New England, be sure to check out the New England Event Series, which highlights a variety of fall-themed traditions and attractions throughout the Northeast. As always, you can count on several other alumni events to be held throughout the country and abroad; this year, we will have events in France, Germany and England. I hope you will commit a few of these events in your calendar to reconnect with some old friends and make some new ones.
Thanks again and happy new academic year (remember that calendar!),
Rich Caswell '89
Alumni Association President
richcaswell@comcast.net
News from the Alumni and Parent Admissions program
Last week my husband and I drove to New York City to visit our son. In the car, I thought about APAP, our goals for the 2007–2008 recruiting cycle and for the next five years. I was filled with gratitude for the loyalty and work of our members and for the remarkable progress APAP has made in rising to the challenges set forth by Clark’s Board of Trustees. In order to continue our progress, I know we need to engage more members in APAP. How we can successfully appeal to alumni and parents to assist us in our efforts is something I often ponder. My husband is not an active alumnus for his school, and I wondered what he thought it would take for a university to inspire an alumnus to become active. So, I asked him.
He thought for a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and replied, “I’m not sure. Why?”
“Well,” I said, “we need more alumni and parents to be involved with our program so we can make sure that more people in more places know about Clark.”
“I thought you already have a lot of volunteers that work with you. Why do you need more?”
I explained that we have about 600 active alumni members and 56 active parent members, and based on where we want to take the program, I figure we will need about 2,200 active volunteers. But even if each of those volunteers recruited one more volunteer for APAP, that would add almost 700 to our ranks. Seven hundred volunteers isn’t so many when you think about the total number of Clark alumni and parents of current students.
“Our volunteers are amazing and they accomplish the work of a much larger volunteer base, but just think about what we could accomplish if we doubled our number of active volunteers,” I said. “Seriously, what do you think it would take to get someone who is not a volunteer involved in APAP?”
Thoughtfully he turned to me and said, “Personal contact. You need to call alumni and parents and talk to them about the value of the program and why it is important to students looking at Clark and to the University.”
My husband’s response was a confirmation of what I already knew. Many of you have recruited fellow alumni and parents to join APAP, and it has made a difference in the quality of our volunteer pool. Realistically, this is something we all must do, so I invite each of you to join me in recruiting new members for APAP. If each of us recruits just one new member this year we can double our membership and help more students discover if Clark University is a good match for them.
Warm regards,
Judy Earls
Director, Alumni and Parent Admissions Program
|
