Minutes of the Hampden-Sydney College Alumni Council Meeting
Meeting: September 10-11, 2004

Alumni Association President, Mike Pace welcomed the attendees and introduced Hampden-Sydney College President, Dr. Walter M. Bortz, III.

Dr. Bortz welcomed the group and expressed appreciation for the efforts alumni have made on behalf of the College this past year. He indicated that alumni make a difference in the life and health of the College and never fail to answer our call.

Mike welcomed and introduced Rucker Snead as the new Director of Career Development for the College.

Rucker stated that it was good to be home, at last! He indicated the office was placing a great emphasis on the credo, “You can do anything with a degree from Hampden-Sydney.” A Hampden-Sydney education doesn’t necessarily prepare you to do a job, but prepares you for life. The department hopes to encourage our students to examine what they would like to do with their lives – and understand why. Choosing a direction will allow them to begin to build a foundation while they are here and make choices about how to get there.

He sees a variety of options for direction: traditional academic careers, professional occupations, corporate occupations, and public service or non-profit careers. The Career Development Office views the process of career choice as a four year program and not just a focus on placement the senior year. The office must support the academic mission of the College and help to get our men ready for life in the 21st century. Key words: Initiative (We will help, but the student must do it!), Choice (We want them to have choices.), Responsibility (We are all responsible for our actions.), Options (Have a back-up plan.).

The Department offers: Career Counseling, Testing, Workshops and information sessions, a CD Library, Internships, On-campus and Off-campus interviews, Alumni networking, Graduate school information, Public service information, and Job coordination services.

While Rucker sees the process as a four year program, his initial thrust this year will be to assist our seniors. Second, he intends to get the freshmen started through the process. Juniors and sophomores will come next in priority and he hopes to get them into the Center to begin the assessment process.

He sees the Center as, first and foremost, being responsible to our students. Secondly, he plans to engage our faculty as the key enablers; developing a student’s academic potential, and third, our alumni, who can help with the internship and placement process, finally, the community at large.

The Office is working to get up to speed on the technology available within the College and be proactive in contacting students, faculty and alumni.

Dr. David Marion, Elliot Professor of Political Science and Director of the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest, was introduced. Dr. Marion related that during our recent symposium on the war on terror, that the Military Leadership and National Security Studies program was formally announced. The program is designed to provide additional educational enrichment for our students and be another quality product we may take to market as we recruit students to the College. The quality programming the College offers is tangible evidence of the value of a Hampden-Sydney education – an education that prepares men for a satisfying life.

Students are being recruited into the Military Leadership program this fall and in the spring will start a series of courses for the certificate program. Fifteen credit hours are required for the certificate.

The Wilson Center has a strong agenda this year; the recent conference on terrorism, a spring conference on bio-ethics, campaign 2004 coverage including debates and speakers, a trip for students to DC, and others. Alumni can assist by participating in workshops, providing internships, spreading the word about the College and by recruiting top young men to attend Hampden-Sydney. Dr. Marion continues to push for the “America’s Leadership College” slogan.

Jason Ferguson ’96, Associate Dean of Admissions, summarized our admissions efforts last year as very exciting; our applicant pool was the largest it has ever been (over 1000 for the 4th year in a row), our SAT average (1144) is up, GPA’s (3.3) are up, and we had the lowest ever acceptance rate (69%). The Office is pleased by the increasing level of participation by our alumni.

The Office would like to increase the applicant pool this year (1300 – 1400) and knows that alumni will continue to help. Direct alumni referrals continue to increase each year: 49 in ’03, 67 in ’04, and already for ’05 we have 56 (to date).

The group of assistant deans was introduced: Dallas Christian ’03, Wes Lawson ’04, Drew McIlreavy ’03, Kerr Ramsey ’03, and Nick Beasley ’03. The geographic area each man covers is listed on the Admissions website as well as upcoming college fairs for the fall season. Alumni are encouraged to look for opportunities to attend a fair in their area to talk with prospective applicants.

The Admissions Office now has the ability to electronically send out lists of prospective students for each club area. It is vital that as these lists grow, our alumni leaders contact the young men to encourage them to apply to the College, or after acceptance by the College, to deposit and attend.

Instruction on the process of admission is now available on the Admissions website along with how alumni can help. The site is linked from the Alumni pages and Career Development pages.

Richard Epperson, Director of Development recapped the previous year for Institutional Advancement. He congratulated the Richmond Club for their achievement in winning the Waters Cup and announced that John Brinkley ’59 would receive the Alumni Citation at Homecoming. The annual fund achieved a record for donations last year ($2.27 million) and thanks were due to Ryan Pemberton, Director of the Annual Fund, Chad Krouse, Assistant Director, and Tommy Davidson, Alumni Association National Vice President for Institutional Advancement for their hard work. He also thanked our alumni as the number of alumni donors (3419) was up by approximately 300 donors over the previous year. This is the highest level since 1994. The goal is 3591 alumni donors for the coming year.

In the coming weeks, the Institutional Advancement staff will be contacting individual club leadership teams to discuss strategy and plans in each club for the coming year.

Athletic Director, Joe Bush spoke about our recent coaching turnovers; the success we have achieved in many Tiger sports has come with a price, in that, good coaches are often recruited away from us. However, we feel we are also replacing these lost coaches with equally good men to lead our teams and mentor our young men.

Ray Rostan, Head Lacrosse Coach and Chris Bissenger, Assistant Lacrosse Coach indicated they felt very positive about the coming season and team. They feel that having to sift through so many fine players to build the team is a real luxury. Recruiting has been very successful the past several years.

Jeff Kinne, Head Baseball Coach commented that he also had been able to get a good recruiting class this past year. In addition, he has added good assistants. Expectations are high for Tiger Baseball this coming spring.

Bubba Smith, Head Basketball Coach introduced his new assistant, Kevin Garst ’99. Recruiting for the Tiger basketball team was strong this past year and the fellows are molding into the team quickly. He commented that he felt fortunate, with a somewhat young team that nine of the first eleven games would be at home this year. Coach Smith encouraged our alumni to continue to look out for quality young men for every sport and to not hesitate to contact the athletic department to let them know about a good potential recruit.

Dean of Students, David Klein introduced his Assistant Deans, Meade Whitaker, Randy Williams, and Richard Furr along with Dustin Reynolds a student leader and Member of the Society of ’91, a leadership training organization on campus.

Dean Whitaker works with all clubs and organizations including fraternities. Dean Williams covers housing and residence life as well as intercultural affairs. Dean Furr deals with student activities.

Dustin Reynolds talked about leadership opportunities available to our students. In every activity on campus; student government, residence life, fraternities, clubs and organizations, fire department, etc. there are opportunities for students to step up to the plate to learn to develop their leadership skills and to lead. The Society of ’91 leadership organization specifically works on developing leadership skills through a program of speakers, group sessions, readings, and activities. Students are encouraged to set goals for improvement and given opportunities to work on leadership. The Society performs community service projects like the Belize trips taken the last several spring breaks where members helped to build local facilities for a charitable organization.

Dustin has personally sought opportunities to lead in his fraternity and in the Hampden-Sydney Fire Department. He ran for student body president last year and though he did not succeed, he is involved with the president’s cabinet. He was tapped for Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership society this year. Honor, Honesty, and Integrity are characteristics he feels his involvement with the Society of ’91 has helped to develop.

Q&A: Greek membership remains at about 32% of the student body. This is stable. Pledge education programs run about 8 weeks. Overall, the number of students involved in various club and organization activities is very high. Because training for D-III sports has almost become year round activities, it is often more difficult for athletes to participate in a fraternity.

The College is doing a lot to attract and retain good students. The student body should be 1082 this fall – the largest ever for the College. Cost is a major factor of being here. However, the program is tough – we do flunk people out – there is no grade inflation – you can’t cheat here.

We are doing a number of things to get our story out about what we do and how we do it – wave our flag to the rest of the country.

Vice President for Institutional Advancement, Beeler Brush discussed the current status of the campaign. He stated that I-A is not only about fund raising but about “friend raising.” There is a lot of good news to report from last year:

• This past year two students were named Rhodes Scholar finalists.
• Hampden-Sydney tied with W&L for the most All-ODAC Scholar Athletes. (With four fewer sports)
• The freshman class is the second-largest (321) and were selected from the largest Application pool ever (1207).
• The acceptance rate for this entering class was 69%, the lowest it has been in fifteen years.
• There are 67 Honors Scholars in this new class, the most ever.
• Opening enrollment was 1,082, the highest it has ever been.
• The retention rate for all students was 92.2%, the highest it has been in fifteen years.
• Hampden-Sydney closed its books in the black for the 2003-2004 fiscal year, the 26th consecutive year with a balanced budget.
• The College received gifts totaling more than $9M, something that has never occurred before.
• The budget support portion (annual fund) of that $9M was $2.27M, the greatest it has ever been.
• There were 3,419 alumni donors, a number we haven’t had since the hay days of the 80’s when the College was in the 60% participation range.
• All of the College’s offers for tenure-track faculty positions were accepted, something that has not occurred in recent memory.
• Our symposium on The War on Terror: Three Years After offered our young men the opportunity to learn first hand from key players in this ongoing conflict and attracted national coverage by C-Span and other media outlets.
• The College appointed David Klein ’78 Dean of Students and hired Rucker Snead ’81 to head the Office of Career Services.
• The football team is ranked 6th in the nation in a preseason poll by Sports Illustrated, a first for the Tigers.

This means that there was more financial aid available for students with need; we became a more selective College; Hampden-Sydney was able to attract and hire quality faculty replacements; and a myriad of academic, social, and athletic activities were improved. Obviously all of this had a great deal to do with our increase in retention and certainly helped Hampden-Sydney continue to “form good men and good citizens in an atmosphere of sound learning."

We are starting our new fiscal year well. Our campaign has raised almost $42.4 million dollars. We have left to raise about $55.5 million. The number one project for the campaign is the library.

That project has been changed somewhat: the site has been moved to be across from Gilmer Hall. The move will take advantage of the sloping terrain thereby reducing excavation costs to construct the foundation and basement level. The size of the building has been adjusted downward, as the Fuqua Communications Center will not be moved from its current location in Johns (thus eliminating the cost of re-routing the fiber optic computer cables to the new building).

Dr. Saranna Thornton, Elliot Associate Professor of Economics, and faculty liaison to the alumni council spoke about Teaching, Service and Scholarship at the College. She suggested that at the spring alumni council meeting the council allocate a period so that the attendees might visit a classroom to see first hand how teaching is now being done at the College. This idea was enthusiastically received by the council members.

Faculty work at the College is like an iceberg – there is a lot that goes on below the surface. The College offers a great location and facilities. Faculty and Staff are key resources. Teaching goes on both inside and outside of the classroom – it is both formal and informal. Faculty scholarship; writing books and articles, contributing to journals and seminars is very important. Because of teaching and service loads most scholarship is conducted during breaks and in the summer. Service is advising students and clubs and serving on committees within the College.

Tenure decisions by the Board of Trustees, the faculty, and the President is somewhat akin to casting a musical – the actors must be competent in singing, dancing, and acting. To receive tenure, a member of the faculty must be competent in teaching, scholarship, and service.

Teaching and scholarship are closely linked. Continuing your education is essential to keep on being a good teacher. Changes in information, technology, source material, etc. must be kept up with in order to stay up to speed. Writing papers, articles, and books is the way a professor tests against good competition, their peers, and is a challenge to stay sharp. In addition, recognition by peers and associates enhances the academic reputation of the institution. This aids in recruiting even better faculty and staff.

In preparation for the breakout sessions for committees, President Pace offered comments:

We must get to the implementation phase of our process to be truly able to help the College. We must push down to the local level in all clubs. This means getting the right leadership and good depth of leadership in every club. We must encourage participation by every club. The Alumni Association must keep the pressure on local clubs to get on board.

National Committee reports:
Admissions: Baxter Vendrick
Alumni efforts should compliment what the Admissions Department is doing. By November 1, each club should have determined an individual to serve as admissions representative for the club. The National Committee members will divide the clubs amongst themselves to be able to contact each club to secure the representative. Clubs should build a local admissions committee to be able to call prospective students both to encourage application to the College and also to help yield accepted students.

Career Development: Tom Crowder
The committee plans to send a letter to each club to ask for identification of a career development coordinator. The committee will follow up with phone calls to each club and coordinator. Rucker will build a contact base. Of primary importance is conveying to alumni the benefits of offering our students internships.

Institutional Advancement: Tom Davidson
Establish goals that will help clubs increase the number of founders and donors:
*Have all geographic areas of a club represented on each leadership team (Ex. Tidewater club should have leaders from Norfolk, VA Beach, and Chesapeake etc.)
*Have a wide range of ages of graduates on each leadership team.
*Find the "right" (meaning those with the right age, experience, name recognition etc.) people for important positions on leadership teams is key
*Special projects each year, like the Nell Drew portrait, get more people engaged and willing to help the College
The major idea is to get as many alumni connected to the College as possible.

Specific things that leadership team members can do to help with Advancement:
*Encourage family, friends, and local businesses to support H-SC.
*Come to local phonathons as they are still very important to the Annual Fund.
*Take cards home from the phonathons and make calls later.
*Set good examples by following through with projects and making the best gift they can make each year.
*Call and encourage local alumni to make the best gift possible to the College each year.

Specific Plan that Tidewater is implementing:
*Divide up 100 names between the most engaged and active alumni in the club region.
*Those leadership team members contact the assigned alumni and update information, encourage participation in alumni events, and ask for an annual fund gift.
*Those 100 alumni then contact five other alumni assuring that everyone in the club is contacted.

Specific things that the College can do to help the local clubs:
*Get accurate and timely information on local alumni to leadership team members.
*Meet with as many leadership teams as possible to set up a specific development plan.

Young Alumni: Judson Root
Committee Members present: Judson Root ’03, Gammon Society Chairman; Joseph Deacon ’03; Bert English ’99, DC Young Alumni Chair, Michael Challoner ’04, and Chad Krouse ’02, Staff.

1. The Committee reviewed the proposed design for the new Young Alumni Bulletin and approved it. The target date for the first issue will be September 30, 2004. The bulletin will be a quarterly publication. The Committee discussed the Young Alumni Webpage and ways to update and change it. The proposed additions to the site included:
   1. Local news of young alumni gatherings with photos.
   2. Short welcome/photo of Stephen Spraker ’97.
   3. Class notes/photos of young alumni weddings, births, etc.
   4. Newsletter links.
   5. Link to alumni update page.
   The “hits” to the new website along with the newsletter will be tracked to see if this project is successful. The results will be reported at the Spring Alumni Council meeting. Deadline: Webpage and Newsletter will go out on September 30, 2004.
2. The Young Alumni Golf Tournament was addressed. This year’s tournament never went beyond the planning stage. In order to make next year’s event happen, the Committee will recruit a Chairman for the 2005 by the Spring Committee Meeting. The topic was then tabled until the Spring Meeting. Deadline: Spring Alumni Council Meeting
3. The tournament led into a discussion of Young Alumni events in the various clubs. One member suggested that perhaps the “happy hours” have lost their luster as more and more young alumni are interested in networking. Furthermore, the declining attendance of these happy hours may suggest that this is the cause. The idea was proposed of doing networking events by industry—for example, an evening of “Cigars and Bankers.” The events would be segmented by industry and attract a more specific group of young alumni. These events would offer our young alumni more substantive opportunities and could increase participation.
4. Another committee member brought up the need to keep track of address changes at Phonathons. The decision was made to create a separate sheet for callers to write down the new contact information to be updated internally with the College. This will occur starting with the first Phonathons starting this October.

President Pace introduced John Dudley ’95, the incoming editor of The Record. John commented that most alumni are not able to get back to campus very often. The Record is a key point of contact with them. He plans to encourage alumni to contribute to the publication and would solicit feedback about what they find most interesting. He hopes the magazine will peak alumni interest in returning to campus. The magazine can be a good place to publish and report on the goals established by the national committees.

Q&A
Tommy Davidson asked that the editor of The Tiger be asked to the next council meeting. The Alumni Office was requested to get to club leaders the current list of contacts in each area.

The Friday afternoon session was adjourned and the council members moved to Chalgrove Point for a dinner and networking with members of the senior class.

Saturday, September 11
Attendees: Mike Pace, Rucker Snead, Richard Epperson, Bill Garrett, Andrea O’York, Howard Stracke

Key Points:
Staffing the national committees is a key for the success of the programs. The executive committee has to stay on top of this. Communications between the National VP and the College staff must be continuous.

A discussion was held regarding the format and duration of future meetings of the council. No decisions were made regarding having the meetings as one day or one and one-half days. It was agreed that the Executive Committee should hold a conference call two weeks prior to the general council meeting and also get together one hour prior to the start of the meeting. The alumni office will identify the date for a conference call prior to the spring alumni council meeting and will advise the executive committee for their planning purposes. The spring alumni council meeting is scheduled for April 8 – 9, 2005.

It was agreed to contact past Alumni Association Presidents to solicit their help and experience. In addition, a plan was discussed to honor them for their service. This is to be done at the spring meeting.

Ideas for the spring meeting: merge the meeting with a spring career expo, another senior dinner, and honor ceremony for past association presidents.

It was suggested that the alumni office consult with Dr. Fleck to ask faculty to let the alumni office know if they have alumni coming to campus for an event.

The Executive Committee must consider plans for succession: Bringing Chuck McPhillips into the Presidency and who is to be the President-Elect.

The Executive Committee needs to work on a plan to encourage clubs to attend the council meetings.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Howard W. Stracke
Director of Alumni Relations, Hampden-Sydney College