2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor
One for the money, two for the...money: The Alumni Office
Karli (Bryan) Winters
Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
As an undergraduate, I was heavily involved in the music department. I participated in a variety of musical groups, clubs and other social events hosted by the music department. After graduating, I have not heard much from the music department. However, I have been made aware of a number of different events in which large amounts of alumni have been invited back to participate in performances.
Living in the Puget Sound area from my graduation in 2003 until this past fall of 2006, I would have had no problem, and would have enjoyed participating in these events as well. However, in all cases, I was not made aware of the events until it was too late to get involved. More often than not, I found out about them by accident.
In my frustration, I sent a diplomatic email to our alumni department describing what I thought had occurred. I don't believe I was intentionally being left out of these events, but I believe that the directors of the various groups were contacting a few alumni, and asking them to get in touch with anybody in the area that they could. For some reason, even though I had kept my contact information current with the school, I was being overlooked. I asked the alumni office to remind the music department that they had current lists of all the alumni in the area that might be of use when scheduling an alumni event.
When I never received any response back from the alumni office, I expressed my frustration to a friend who is also an alumnus of the music program. She explained to me that a couple years before when she had been trying to organize a choir tour to the Bay Area, she had asked the alumni office for a list of alumni in that area, assuming that they might want to come to the concerts or perhaps hosts some students as a home stay. The alumni office had refused to give her, or even the choir director, any information, sighting that they did not want anyone outside of the alumni office asking the alumni for monetary donations. Soliciting monetary donations was not the purpose in obtaining the list at all, but rather to personally invite former students to come to our concerts. It wasn't until after hearing this story that I realized the true purpose of alumni departments.
I would hope that an institution that is committed to its students, to educating the whole person, and to "liberating each person's fullest intellectual and human potential" would try to strike a balance between taking from and giving to alumni. I would hope that we see alumni as more than institutional money makers, and that our purpose behind alumni events is more than simply enticing them to pay up. While I know that are alumni are a valuable monetary asset to the university, I hope that we make it one of our values to continue to see our students as whole people even after they leave the campus.
Karli (Bryan) Winters, Class of 2003
Living in the Puget Sound area from my graduation in 2003 until this past fall of 2006, I would have had no problem, and would have enjoyed participating in these events as well. However, in all cases, I was not made aware of the events until it was too late to get involved. More often than not, I found out about them by accident.
In my frustration, I sent a diplomatic email to our alumni department describing what I thought had occurred. I don't believe I was intentionally being left out of these events, but I believe that the directors of the various groups were contacting a few alumni, and asking them to get in touch with anybody in the area that they could. For some reason, even though I had kept my contact information current with the school, I was being overlooked. I asked the alumni office to remind the music department that they had current lists of all the alumni in the area that might be of use when scheduling an alumni event.
When I never received any response back from the alumni office, I expressed my frustration to a friend who is also an alumnus of the music program. She explained to me that a couple years before when she had been trying to organize a choir tour to the Bay Area, she had asked the alumni office for a list of alumni in that area, assuming that they might want to come to the concerts or perhaps hosts some students as a home stay. The alumni office had refused to give her, or even the choir director, any information, sighting that they did not want anyone outside of the alumni office asking the alumni for monetary donations. Soliciting monetary donations was not the purpose in obtaining the list at all, but rather to personally invite former students to come to our concerts. It wasn't until after hearing this story that I realized the true purpose of alumni departments.
I would hope that an institution that is committed to its students, to educating the whole person, and to "liberating each person's fullest intellectual and human potential" would try to strike a balance between taking from and giving to alumni. I would hope that we see alumni as more than institutional money makers, and that our purpose behind alumni events is more than simply enticing them to pay up. While I know that are alumni are a valuable monetary asset to the university, I hope that we make it one of our values to continue to see our students as whole people even after they leave the campus.
Karli (Bryan) Winters, Class of 2003
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