Assembly LIX: The Tercentennial of Yale University
Thursday, October 4  through Friday, October 5, 2001
Executive Summary
Grad/Pro Breakout

Breakout Session on Graduate and Professional School Relations Moderators: Julia Downs, Associate Director for Graduate School Alumni Relations and Laura Weiss '88 MArch, Chair of the Graduate and Professional Schools Committee

Sixteen graduate and professional school alumni discussed the major challenges AYA faces in alumni relations. Weiss opened the meeting by reading a statement outlining AYA's role in graduate school alumni relations and then posed several questions for group discussion.

What would most attract Graduate and Professional alumni to engage with Yale?

• Connect G & P alumni and special interest groups with AYA travel/education programs to underscore Yale's global orientation; organize programs by discipline - i.e. medicine - with relevant faculty
• Try offering some shorter, less expensive travel programs to appeal to G & P alumni
• Bring alumni to Yale rather than Yale to alumni
• Provide opportunities for alumni to meet current students in related fields
• Organize special lecture series by field/professions
• Involve Yale clubs and on-campus societies. Have them notify alumni of their events. Alumni can access Yale Weekly Bulletin and Calendar online to learn of events on campus. What motivates alumni to come back to/reconnect with Yale?
• Intellectual stimulation - talking with people helps to conceptualize the world as it is now. Personal interaction more stimulating than just reading about ideas.
• Networking with alumni in local areas. There is a need for a directory of graduate school alumni with listings by location and department. Yale club meetings are difficult to attend on weeknights.
• Can connect intellectually from a distance - view Yale course offerings, reading lists, syllabi.
• Something to nurture the spirit in a completely different field - the April Tercentennial was wonderful in this regard -- involvement of students, more than just lectures and experts. How should Yale and the AYA communicate with G & P alumni?
• Professional school delegates can use their school's newsletter to communicate.
• The Nursing School news editor would like to include Yale news beyond nursing. (i.e. expand newsletters to include news and information about other graduate departments, Yale and New Haven).
• Prefer human contact to the internet
• How do Yale and the AYA currently communicate with alumni? The Blue Print is sent only to Assembly delegates; G & P alumni need to subscribe to the Yale Alumni Magazine; the Graduate School Newsletter is geared towards on-campus events; departmental newsletters (for the Graduate School) are just getting started.
• Gender Matters invitation was sent to the work place - good move! (i.e. good public relations with alumnae)
• How might AYA better interact with professional alumni groups? Are AYA delegates automatically on the alumni board for their professional school? (Some yes, some no.) Would alumni boards welcome more AYA involvement? Graduate school delegates were not aware of the GSAA!
• How do alumni learn about the AYA and the opportunity to become delegates? Current delegates could e-mail alumni to tell them about assemblies and other events, and to recruit future delegates.
• Alumni became delegates by serendipity. It was a quirk of fate rather than a planned event.
• Might professional schools want to become part of the AYA (as did the Graduate School)?
• Many alumni don't realize that one half of all Yale alumni are from the graduate and professional schools. People think that the AYA is an organization for undergraduate alumni.

When the breakout session ended, Laura Weiss offered to keep the brainstorming session going via email - she is reachable at lweiss@idso.com.

Executive Summary Contents
I. Home
II. Opening Plenary
III. Class Breakout
IV. Club Breakout
V. G/P Breakout
VI. SIG Breakout
VII. Ed. Breakout
VIII. Reception