October 23–25, 2014
The Alumni Liaison Committee (ALC) met in Hanover twice during the 209th Alumni Council session. The first meeting was held on Thursday, October 23. Committee chair Mark Davis ’81 ’84Tu opened the meeting. Interim Dean of the Tucker Foundation Theresa Ellis ’97 discussed the planned division of the Tucker Foundation into two separate departments: one to focus on service and one to focus on religious and spiritual life. Two working groups have been formed to help shape these new centers and are collecting feedback through November 7. The working groups will present their recommendations pertaining to these two new centers to Provost Carolyn Dever by December 1. As part of this process, Theresa posed the following questions to the ALC: 1) Based on your experience to date with the Tucker Foundation, what would you characterize as its strengths and its challenges? 2) Are there examples of other institutions that have particularly effective efforts to support religious and spiritual life? 3) Are there examples of service efforts you've seen at other institutions that Dartmouth can learn from? The committee shared feedback with Theresa in response to these questions.
The next item on the agenda was a debrief about the October 9 conference call with the Board of Trustees' Advancement Committee to discuss the 2013-2014 ALC annual report. The committee discussed the Moosilauke Forum professional-development survey that was conducted. The process was great and the responses gathered from the alumni surveyed will be very helpful for Roger Woolsey (Office of Professional development), Dan Parish (Dartmouth for Life), and Barry Caldwell (chair of the Alumni Council's Professional Development Committee). When the ALC held their conference call with the Advancement Committee, it was agreed that they would provide quarterly updates throughout the year. The ALC discussed the format for the quarterly reports which will include alumni email counts, hot topics reflected in alumni feedback, etc. Next on the agenda was a discussion about social media, communications, and listening posts. The meeting concluded with a brief update from Lou Spelios about the Alumni Council weekend and from Sue Finegan about the Association of Alumni.
The ALC met again on Saturday, October 25, with President Hanlon ’77, trustees Bill Hellman ’80 (chair), Sherri Oberg ’82, ’86Tu, and Emily P. Bakemeier ’82, vice president for Alumni Relations Martha Beattie ’76, and senior vice president for Advancement Bob Lasher ’88. Mark Davis provided an update of the Alumni Council meeting to date. Next on the agenda was a discussion of the conference call between the ALC and the Trustees' Advancement Committee on October 9. The revised, more concise format of the ALC annual report was well received by the trustees. The ALC noted that they hope to increase and expand the means of communication between alumni and the committee. In addition to email, social media is another tool the Alumni Council and the ALC are considering to serve as "listening posts" for the collection of alumni feedback. The group also discussed the Moosilauke Forum's recent survey on professional development noting that this topic is important to alumni, students, and the administration.