Clubs Not Represented

Augusta/Rockingham, Baltimore, Bluefield/Tazewell, Dallas, Jacksonville, New York, Palmetto, Peninsula, Petersburg, Piedmont North Carolina, Rappahannock, Winchester

Meeting Minutes

President Walter M. Bortz III welcomed the Council and thanked all the volunteers for their efforts.  He also addressed the recent drug bust at the College.  To view Dr. Bortz’s remarks published in the April 20 edition of The Tiger, click here. 

John L. Brinkley gave inspiring reflections of his 40 years at Hampden-Sydney College.  Mr. Brinkley will be retiring at the conclusion of this spring semester and will reside in Richmond Va. at Westminster Canterbury.

Members of the Council adjourned in mid-morning to attend a class – they had pre-registered and the faculty was very happy to re-engage with alumni.

Richard Epperson '79 introduced all the spring sports coaches for updates in their respective areas. H-SC sports teams completed the 2006-07 seasons with the following records:

            Football 4-6

Basketball 19-11

Soccer 10-6-2

Tennis 10-6

Baseball 25-18

Lacrosse 12-3

The Council applauded all coaches for yet another fantastic athletic year!

Anita Garland addressed the Council and provided an update on Admissions.  Applications are on pace with those from a year ago.  She has not seen an adverse effect due to the negative publicity of the drug bust.  To view Dean Garland’s remarks in their entirety, click here. 

Chad Krouse gave an excellent presentation on the changing demographics of our alumni base.  Over 60% of the College’s living graduates have graduated since 1980 and almost 50% graduating since 1990.   To view Chad’s comment’s in detail, click here.

Council members adjourned for breakout sessions addressing  Admissions, Career Development, Development, and Young Alumni objectives.   More information about these breakout meetings is included in the Saturday Session below.   

The Council members thoroughly enjoyed a tour of the new Wilson-Mottley Library, which will be open this coming fall.

The Council joined representatives from the Wilson Center for Leadership for a most enjoyable dinner in the Board Room of Pannill Commons. 

Saturday Session

Attendees enjoyed a breakfast highlighted by remarks from Vice President for Institutional Advancement Beeler Brush.  The Campaign is doing well.  To date, approximately $75 million  has been received towards the campaign goal of $91 million. 

Administrative and Student Perspectives, Dean Klein ’78, Rucker Snead ’81 and Students.

Breakout session reports

Career Development Committee Meeting

General |  Admissions  |  Development  |  Young Alumni  | Career Development  | Alumni Goals

On Friday 21 April the Career Development Breakout Session met.  After a brief update from the Director of Career Development, that session covered the following items.

1.  Reviewed the list of Tasks for Club Career Development Representatives.  Those tasks include:

• Serve as the Career Development Point of Contact between the Alumni Club and the Career Development Office.

•  Know and develop a contact list of key alumni and key employers in the Club area.

• Be willing to talk with students about career development opportunities in the Club area

• Work to link students and alums with alums in Club.

•  Identify and provide information to Career Development Office on potential internship and job opportunities.

2.  Briefly discussed what seemed to be working at the local club level.  A common point of discussion was that all clubs need to develop at the club level a list of alums to serve as contacts in various industries and career fields.  This way the Career Development Reps will be able to spread the workload and link students to alumni in the fields where the students had particular interests

3.  The Clubs identified the need to have an update to date roster of the Club alums, occupations, and contact information from the Alumni Office so that they could reach out to alumni to solicit their support for the coming year. 

4.  Discussed the continued evolvement of the Club Career Development SOP.  This SOP will be electronic and located on the Career Development and Alumni Office Websites.  The Career Development Office will work to make this information available.  Initial items will include:

• How alumni can assist the Career Development Office

• How to become an Alumni Electronic Mentor

• How to submit a job or internship opportunity

• Link to Career Development information and brochures

• Sample Club Industry POC Contact List

•  Link to “What is an internship” or how to set up an internship.

5.  Discussed the need for periodic updates from the Career Development Office on what is going on and how alumni can assist based on the time of the year.   Based on the success of the Alumni Leadership Conference Calls this past year, a suggestion was made that we have a quarterly conference call among the Career Development Representatives.  We will work with the Alumni Office in trying to fund and schedule them.  The Career Development Office will continue to send out electronic updates in the coming year.

6.  Briefly discussed the criteria and the challenges for the Internship portion of the Waters Cup Competition.  This past year the Career Development Office has received greater support, but the program is not working as well as it was originally envisioned.  We will need to look at this at the Fall Alumni Council Meeting once we have better visibility on the internship results from the summer of 2007.

7.  Briefly discussed how to integrate the efforts begun under the Young Alumni Task Force into the local level.  This is an item that we need to spend some time on at the Fall Alumni Council Meeting.  One possible suggestion will be to have a “Young Alumni” work with each of the Club Career Development Representatives.

8.  Briefly discussed the budget limitations facing the Career Development and how those limitations impact the expansion of current programs and the development of new programs to assist students.  Floated the possibility of perhaps creating a “Hire a Tiger” Club as a means of raising some additional funding.  The Career Development Director provided examples of what some current activities and programs costs.

9.  Briefly reviewed how Alumni can assist the efforts of the Career Development Office.  Alumni support includes:

• Employ Hampden-Sydney graduates.

• Provide summer internships and jobs for underclassmen.
• Volunteer to serve as mentor through the Alumni Electronic Career Network.   To sign up go to http://www.ecampusrecruiter3.com/hsc/index.php?script=local-login.  Click on the Alumni Career Network icon and follow the instructions.
• Support the Career Development representative with each Alumni Chapter.
• Have your organization recruit on campus.
• Accept student resumes and actively forward to viable contacts.
• Call or write the Career Development Director when you become aware of specific job openings for direct entry hires.  Go to http://www.ecampusrecruiter3.com/hsc/index.php?script=local-login.  Click on the Employers icon and follow the instructions.
• Introduce the Career Development Director to hiring contacts in your organization and those with whom you do business.
• Arrange for students groups to visit your place of business for information sessions.
• Volunteer to make presentations on campus.
• Participate in our Alumni Expos and Networking events on campus.
• Host student networking events during school breaks.
• Sponsor career development activities and events. 

Development Committee Meeting

General |  Admissions  |  Development  |  Young Alumni  | Career Development  | Alumni Goals

Development Breakout Session Report from this past weekend’s Alumni Council Meeting:  43-45% alumni participation in the Annual Fund is an unacceptable number as far as our Alumni Association is concerned.  In order to achieve a desirable 60% alumni participation mark and to move the College closer to a $3 Million Annual Fund, the Development Committee of the Alumni Association recommends the following:

Greater emphasis on the Brinkley Challenge classes will fall under the volunteer supervision of Michael Blackwell ’01, National VP for Young Alumni.  New emphasis on the next decade of young graduates, those who graduated in years 1986-1996 will fall under the volunteer supervision of Stephen Spraker ’97, our New National VP for Development.  Tommy Davidson ’63 will remain as National VP for Development with emphasis on the older alumni, prior to 1986.  In spite of record fundraising in the Annual Fund over the past few years, this segmented approach should pay great dividends to the College, especially in Spraker’s area - where few specific attentions have ever been placed.

The challenge to create stimulating electronic solicitation pieces for our young alumni remains strong.  This group of alumni is least likely to respond to direct mail or our phonathon activity.

ACTION ITEM: Chad Krouse ’02 will distribute (electronically) a list of SYBUNT donors from each club area to each attending club representative for immediate Annual Fund solicitation.  The solicitations from alumni volunteers should happen before June 1, 2007.

Admissions Committee Meeting

General |  Admissions  |  Development  |  Young Alumni  | Career Development  | Alumni Goals

The Admissions Committee meeting was held on April 20^th and reported back to the entire Alumni Association on Saturday, April 21^st.  The final recommendations and plan of action were as follows:

The committee complimented the excellence that already exists within the Admission Department.  Further, it was indicated that the role of the Admissions Committee and the members that make up this committee from the different local clubs have one main resolve and that is to simply assist the Admissions Department where ever they need local alumni and our support.

The meeting consisted off three main topics where the committee felt should be addressed by the Admissions Department and/or the college as a whole—better communication with admissions alumni representatives, the need for a well produced video of the Hill, and the strengthening of the current model in place for our local clubs as it relates to the admissions segment.

Communication: 

            The Committee recognizes that the front line of the Admissions Department is made up by the Assistant Deans of Admissions.  These young men have many responsibilities on their plates and have a large territory to cover during a short period of time.   The admissions representatives from the different clubs would like to receive greater communication from the assistant dean assigned to the respective club areas.  The communications from the Assistant Deans to the representatives include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

1.      The schedule of the Assistant Dean (when he will be the club area)

2.      Targeted high schools

3.      Targeted students

4.      The number of students the area and/or high school needs to yield

5.      Where he could use assistance (Phone calls, college fairs, letters, etc.)

To help ensure enhanced communication, the committee had two suggestions:

1.      At a minimum, the college should coordinate quarterly conference calls between each Assistant Dean of Admissions and the alumni representatives for his territory.

2.      Each Assistant Dean should be equipped with a Blackberry so that he can receive and send e-mail communication when on the road.

College Video:

            The suggestion of a college video includes a focus on admissions; however, it in now way should be limited to just admissions nor should it be the responsibility of the Admissions Department to completely design, produce, or fund the project out of it’s budget. 

            The initial idea came from the discussion about when a perspective student visits the college and how he has a much greater probability of selecting Hampden-Sydney College has his college home if he spends time on the Hill.  Bringing young men to the college does not pose as large as a problem for clubs that are located within a three to four hour radius of the college.  Where the difficulty rests is with the perspective students who live much farther away.  If a video was produced and sent to these young men, it would offer a much more compelling reason for a visit than just the pictures on a brochure.   While the video cannot completely replace the on campus visit, it is a strong second option if the visit is not able to take place.   The article that was published in the Richmond-Times Dispatch this past April painted an excellent picture of the Hill.  If the college were able to capture that same thing in the medium of video, the use of such would be able to positively influence several focus areas of the college.

            For those alumni of the college who have not been to campus for many years and who have not contributed financially, a stroll down memory lane through this video might be just the thing we need to get their commitments.  As the career development office continues to search for internships and companies to employ the son’s of our college, the video would be able to visually tell the story of the boys who enter our school and the young men who exit her.

Strengthening the Current Alumni Club Model for Admissions:

            The current model for the alumni clubs includes a solid structure and a number of different activities.  Because this model is already public knowledge, I will not elaborate on the different nuances of the model.  However, the committee did discuss the need to increase the participation from the different clubs, both large and small, with their admission committees.  Each club, regardless of size, should have one admissions representative and, if possible several additional members.  These additional members are in place to assist the alumni admissions representative.  This service could entail the assignment of a particular high school where he will visit with the counselors who work there or just help with admissions functions and the recruitment of future sons of the college.

Dean Anita H. Garland and I will be meeting in June to further discuss the suggestions above as well as meet the new team of Assistant Deans of Admissions.

Alumni Goals Committee Meeting

General |  Admissions  |  Development  |  Young Alumni  | Career Development  | Alumni Goals